


The Inherited

by Derin



Series: Parting the Clouds [31]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 09:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17220980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: Someone's looking for Tobias.A lawyer wants to read a will to him. His father's will. What's more, a distant relative has shown up out of nowhere to take Tobias in. It all feels too good to be true, but the Animorphs can't figure out how this can possibly be a yeerk plot.Also, Marco's father is remarrying. Between Marco's father moving on, David's father recently dead and Tobias' father's words from beyond the grave, there's a lot more going on for these teenagers than a mere alien invasion. Can Cassie keep her friends emotionally stable enough to actually defend the planet? And is it even her job to do so?Thanks to Redtailedhawk90, Justanotherghostwriter and Zaqwer for their excellent beta work.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked David.

“No, I don’t. I’m fine.” He stared at a caged wolf, who stared balefully back. She’d gotten tangled up in some barbed wire, and we were holding onto her until her stitches could come out. David and I were alone in the barn, a good half an hour before the team meeting. (I might have given David the wrong meeting time. Accidentally.)

I nodded. That was obviously not true, but talking to David could be tricky. It was a bit like talking to Marco, in a way, who would shut down the instant he suspected there might be any vague possibility that someone might pity him. David wasn’t allergic to pity – I’d seen him use it as a weapon before – but he couldn’t stand the idea of anybody thinking he was weak, and he had some pretty weird ideas about what counted as weakness. So perhaps it was more like talking to Rachel, but instead of the lifetime of trust, affection and understanding I had with Rachel, we had just months of life-changing terror, and a broken promise of familial rescue.

“Your eyes are bloodshot,” I noted. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Of course I haven’t been sleeping!” he snapped. “I’ve barely slept since this whole nightmare started!”

I headed into the storeroom, and returned with a small bottle of pills. “These are sedatives,” I said. “When you can’t sleep, take one and a half. No more! And don’t morph, unless you want to get them out of your system.” I handed him the bottle, but held onto it for a few seconds as his hand closed over it, meeting his eyes. “I’m serious about not taking more. You’re going to be tempted to take extra while you wait for it to kick in, to make it work faster. But that doesn’t make it work any faster; it just makes it dangerous when it does work.”

“I’m sure I can figure out sleeping pills,” he snapped, pulling them out of my hand. Then, “Thanks.”

“Glad to have you with us,” I said. “Last night was… I’m sorry about what happened. I was surprised to be able to catch up with you again so soon.”

He glared at me. “What, you thought I’d vanish into the night?”

Some ego stroking was in order. “Tobias did. He freaked out shortly after getting trapped in morph and we couldn’t find him for days. And when I freaked out, I ran off into the forest and they ended up getting emergency services to comb the forest for me.”

“That was the, uh, the yeerk thing, right?”

“Aftran. Yes.”

“The traitor.”

“I thought it was very brave, what she did. It must be really hard, to go against everything you’ve ever been taught.” I hadn’t managed it, had I, in that other world? That other Cassie had believed all kinds of ridiculous, fallacious and disgusting things with every bit as much confidence and certainty as my own beliefs. Despite all of her courage and discipline, even when her parents had patiently explained the faults in her worldview to her, her response had been a very human one – to defend her internal world by turning away. Her logic had seemed as ironclad to her as mine always did to me. If it came down to it, if it turned out that everything I knew was wrong and everything I did was evil, would I be able to face it, like Aftran? Or would I protect my erroneous worldview so strongly that I didn’t even notice it was happening? The evidence suggested the latter. Something like that can be a real shock to a young rationalist.

David just snorted. “It’s a war, and she turned her back on her people. Would you betray humanity like that? I wouldn’t.”

I decided that the best time to discuss the intricacies of yeerk/human war with a teammate was not the day after said teammate had watched his father die as a yeerk slave. Instead, I started my rounds. It was only about six thirty in the morning, but an early breakfast wouldn’t hurt the animals. David watched me work silently.

Ax and Tobias showed up half an hour later. As usual when in the barn, Ax was in human morph; he walked over to David and put a hand on his chest.

“My brother was killed by yeerks,” he said. “Our cultures are very different, but in this aspect I think you will agree with me. We are young, but we are the remaining _shomaktil_ of our _tak_. To us falls the right and duty of vengeance. These beings that have dared to draw blades on our kin… we will make them pay for their actions fourfold in blood.”

David nodded. “We will.”

Ax got to work helping me. He’s a pretty good assistant for barn work, if completely lacking in initiative. He’d started trying to help me before he had any real sense for how human tools were used, so he had learned through strict imitation; he did things in the exact manner he’d seen me do them, and if he hadn’t seen me do them or if complications arose, he didn’t try. This meant I could let him do a lot of the routine cleaning and tidying while I focused on trickier things like bandage changes and giving medication to animals who disagreed with me on whether they needed medication.

Marco and Jake arrived together, as usual; Marco gave David a nod, then settled into his customary place on the hay, while Jake tried not to blush guiltily as he solemnly asked David how he was doing and was palmed off with a shrug. Rachel was mere minutes behind them.

“Okay,” Jake said, looking around at the assembled Animorphs. “That was… things have been pretty rough recently. There’s a lot I don’t remember, but...” he glanced at David and cleared his throat. “Anyway. We seem to have a bit of a gap in yeerk stuff, so we should get to work on a very important mission.”

“No,” David said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re about to suggest we save my mom, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “Not yet. It’s way too dangerous.”

“Excuse me?” Rachel said. “This whole time you’ve been gung-ho about charging in and getting your parents – ”

“And every time we run off with some insane plan it puts them in danger!” he snapped. “My dad was in the construction site last night because Visser Three was pissed at his yeerk and he needed some way to get back into his good graces! He didn’t know there was a time machine there! He was looking for me!”

I shook my head. “We can’t be sure that – ”

“Those girls were describing me to the homeless people. It’s logical, I guess, if you’re that desperate. I started hanging out in that place right after we arrived; I found the blue box there. If there was any scrap of information that he could give Visser Three to buy time for himself, he’d probably find it there. And why did he need to buy time, do you think?”

“Could be any number of reasons,” Marco shrugged. “Visser Three isn’t very forgiving. He probably left the keys in a bug fighter or something.”

“Or maybe, Marco, it’s because he, Mom’s yeerk, and a handful of their friends went behind Visser Three’s back to trade my parents for the blue cube when we lured them out to the train station? And completely failed to get said cube, or capture me? Do you think that might have something to do with it? Every time we try to rescue them, we rush in, screw it up, and put them in way more danger. This time, it caught up with my Dad. So no more half-measures. We go for her when we have a rock-solid plan; when we’re sure it’ll work. Not before.”

“The longer we leave this, man,” Marco said, “the more likely it is you’re going to have to face her yourself and make a hard choice.”

“Not really. My mom isn’t controlled by someone in charge of major yeerk operations. She works on rides in The Gardens. If we just leave her alone until we’ve figured out how to save her – ”

“Visser Three will use her as a hostage eventually.”

“If we keep going after her and making her think he’s important to us, yes, he will. But he hasn’t yet, not since that night with the fake Summit trap, when he tried it and I totally owned him. So I think she’s probably safe until _we_ do something.”

“He’s not really one for iterative strategy,” Jake agreed, nodding. “But you do know what you’re saying, right? My brother Tom has been on our ‘future rescue’ list for this entire war, and it’s never been the right time.”

“If it’s taking too long, we fight harder,” David practically snarled.

Rachel laughed and clapped him on the back. “See, I knew you were a good choice for this team, David. We think on the same wavelength.”

David blushed.

“Okay then,” Jake said. “Unless anyone has any counterpoints, I guess we… don’t have a mission right now. Great meeting, everyone.”

“Sweet,” Rachel said. “I’m gonna fly home and get ready for school.”

“There is one thing, actually,” Marco said. “Not a mission, but.” He avoided meeting anyone’s eyes.

When he didn’t elaborate, I prompted, “What’s up, Marco?”

“A wedding. Dad’s marrying Nora in two months and he said to bring my friends, so you’re all invited.”

“Sweet,” Rachel said. “Cassie, we’re going dress shopping.”

“Of course we are,” I replied, trying to not be too obvious about observing Marco carefully. Marco, who had lost his mother to this war and then killed her in the ocean, who had dragged his dad out of a two-year depressive slump and was now watching him marry his math teacher. How was he really handling this?

“Wed-ding,” Ax said slowly, trying out the word.

<Do andalites not have weddings, Ax?> Tobias asked. <Do we need to explain?>

“No, I understand the ceremony. I have watched many people who are Young and Restless have weddings. But they rarely manage to complete the ceremony. I am interested to see the full thing. Will there be objections when Nora’s previous mate charges into the ceremony and declares that they are no longer comatose and still love her?”

“Oh god I hope not,” Rachel muttered.

<I’m fairly certain that no one will object,> Tobias said.

“Good. Familial harmony is important.”

“Do we know what color the bridesmaids will be wearing?” Rachel asked. “Because I’m seeing Cassie in peach, but if they’re anything in the apricot part of the spectrum then we want to steer into blues so we’re not too similar.”

“You’re going to make a terrifying bride someday, you know that?” Jake asked.

“It’s a reasonable concern! You have to look nice at a wedding. It’s a respect thing.”

“What’s Cassie wearing at your wedding?” Marco asked.

“Bridesmaids are in periwinkle blue,” she replied immediately. “Cassie’s will be slightly darker to distinguish the Maid of Honor, with her flowers matching the other maids – what?!” She glared at Jake, Marco and David, who were all unsuccessfully hiding smiles.

“You’re just such a barbie doll sometimes,” David said, earning himself an extra glare.

“It’s called being organised.”

“I’d watch out,” Marco called up to Tobias, “she’s probably already picked your outfit and your rings.”

<I need to check on the hork-bajir,> Tobias said quickly, and left.

“I look good in a tux,” David said, winking at Rachel, who punched his shoulder playfully.

We fell into awkward silence. It hadn’t been his implication, but the discussion of suits reminded me suddenly of funerals.

David’s dad hadn’t left a body; the yeerks had destroyed all evidence of the fight. He’d be a missing person for quite some time, before anybody had a funeral for him.

“I need to go,” Rachel said. “Gotta get ready for school.”

“We all should,” Marco said. He and Jake followed Rachel out.

“I need to demorph soon,” Ax said. “And train. David, you will have your vengeance.” With a nod to me, he left, too.

I looked to David. “You’re sure you’re – ”

“I’m fine, Cassie.”

“Because I can stay home from school if – ”

“Just because my mom’s a controller doesn’t mean the position’s open, Cassie. I can take care of myself.”

“… Right. Well. I have to go get ready for school, then.” I headed back to my house, full of my family, untouched by yeerk trouble. Unlike David’s family, Marco’s family, even Rachel and Jake’s families if you got down to it. It wasn’t my fault, exactly, but it’s hard not to feel guilty about that sort of thing. Not that guilt ever helped anyone.

Action did.


	2. Chapter 2

It was difficult, amidst an alien conflict, to care about something like school; at least, a school operating by rules that assumed there wasn’t an alien conflict. Didn’t help that the school itself was mostly run by aliens.

History class felt more hollow, more solemn, than usual. I knew that was an illusion. The reason Jeremy, the boy sitting in front of me, wasn’t dropping bits of broken eraser down his friend Michael’s shirt had nothing to do with the mess we had just experienced – to them, it was a normal day at school. The reason he was behaving was because Mr Tidwell had a tendency to hand out detentions like cheap candy on Halloween.

“Your tests,” Mr Tidwell announced as he strode into the room. “A few of you did well. Some of you were rather more disappointing. I expect you to take our next segment more seriously.” Said tests were returned, amid a lot of winces and disappointed groans. I didn’t want to open mine. It had happened right after the andalite virus thing, and I was pretty sure I’d failed, or come close to it.

I peeked at my mark. B minus. That couldn’t possibly be right; he must have handed me the wrong test. I checked the answers; they were indeed mine.

History was one of the classes that the four school-going animorphs shared; a glance around the room showed equally surprised looks on Rachel and Marco’s faces. (Jake didn’t seem to think anything was up. He’d probably aced the test on his own.)

I looked at Mr Tidwell, who was, quite sensibly, paying absolutely no attention to me. Not for the first time, I wished Aftran would let me tell him that she was still alive.

Tidwell was interrupted mid-handout by a timid knock on the door. “Yes?”

A kid I didn’t recognise entered and handed him a note.

“Right now?” Tidwell asked, sounding annoyed. “Fine. Jake, Assistant Principal Chapman wants to see you.”

Jake exchanged a slightly panicked glance with Marco. “W… why?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll tell you. Off you go.”

I raised a hand. “Mr Tidwell, I need to go to the bath – ”

“Yes, fine, go. Now, for our next unit...”

I followed Jake out into the hall, but I couldn’t just walk to Chapman’s office with him; not with the other kid there. Several scenarios ran through my head. Maybe Chapman just wanted to chew Jake out for his frequent absences from school. Maybe he wanted to talk him into going to a Sharing meeting, since Tom could work easier if his whole family were infested.

Or maybe someone had slipped up, and they suspected who Jake was – maybe who all of us were. Maybe this was the easiest, least suspicious way to get an animorph alone and outnumbered. If that was the case, if there was a trap here – would I be able to save him?

No. But I’d be able to get a warning out.

I caught Jake’s eye and headed for the nearest bathroom as fast as I could without looking suspicious. (Not that anybody gets in the way of anyone practically running for a bathroom.) Jake, for his part, started following the kid very, very slowly. This was impossible to make suspicious – anybody who had sat through one of Mr Tidwell’s classes would understand the desire to make any out-of-class errand, even a trip to the assistant principal’s office, take as long as physically possible. Still, he was nearly at Chapman’s door by the time I’d stashed my school uniform, morphed lizard, and caught up. I clung to the back of his shoe, sheltering under an unnecessarily wide pant leg practically dragging on the floor (boy fashion makes even less sense than girl fashion), just as Chapman’s door swung open.

“Ah, Jake,” Chapman said. “Thank you, Roger; you can go back to class now.”

“What’s this about, Mr Chapman?” Jake asked.

“Oh, nothing serious. Come in, come in; don’t just stand in the hallway. Close the door, please. Take a seat. How’s school going?”

“Uh, fine. Is something wrong?”

“Not necessarily. Did you know your brother’s up for a community service award? He’s really done wonderful work in The Sharing. It’ll look very good on his college applications. Has he told you where he’s thinking of going? He doesn’t discuss it much.”

“Uh, no, I’m not sure.”

“Hmm. Have you thought about where you might go to college, Jake?”

“Me? There’s still years before – ”

“And applications get more competitive every year. You need a solid list of extracurriculars if you want a chance at a decent school. It’s time to start thinking about your future now, and about the people and the groups who could help you. Did you know that The Sharing have started five new community service programs this year, and that they give out three community service awards every year? Scholarship boards take that sort of thing very seriously. Since you and your brother both seem to be abandoning sports as a potential scholarship avenue, it’s worth thinking about.”

I couldn’t see Jake’s face, but I knew he’d be blushing. “Is that why you wanted to see me? To talk about my future?”

“Well, no. Actually I wanted to talk to you about another student. A boy who used to go to school here before he disappeared. I understand he used to hang out with you and your friends – Tobias Fangor. Do you know anything about what happened to him?”

I felt Jake stiffen. “Tobias? No. I mean, I… I guess I remember him. He didn’t really hang out with us, he just kind of followed me around for a little bit, to stop bullies from getting him, I think. I thought he just, like, found some new friends. You’re saying he disappeared?”

“Hmm. Well, do you know anyone who might know where he is?”

“Why? Is he in trouble?”

“Trouble? No. I am certain his Aunt and Uncle would be very relieved to learn that he is safe,” Chapman said in a tone that suggested he was certain of no such thing, “but in fact this is a legal issue.”

“He _is_ in trouble.”

“You do know how to contact him.”

“I know someone who knows someone who might – ”

“Jake, it’s okay. I understand.”

“What… what do you understand?”

Chapman sighed. “This conversation never happened, understand?”

A pause. I supposed that Jake was probably nodding.

“I understand that when Tobias’ name showed up as absent in all of his classes for two weeks running and I called his Aunt and Uncle, each thought he was living with the other and didn’t seem overly distressed to be corrected. I understand that while every child deserves a safe and stable home, that is not always a possibility, and social service is… very complicated. To you, I’m sure it looks like teachers were born teachers and live in the school, sleeping in lockers and eating a nutritious diet of homework papers and teenage tears, but once upon a time I was in fact a social worker. I am not trying to send your friend back into a situation that he was this determined to leave.”

“If I _did_ know someone who might be able to talk to Tobias, what would you want them to tell him?”

A rustle of something papery was pushed across Chapman’s desk. “I’d want him to consider contacting this lawyer.”

“Mr DeGroot?”

“I am not, of course, allowed to explain, for confidentiality reasons.”

“It’s a good thing this conversation never happened, then.”

“Jake – ”

“You just said you don’t want Tobias to go back somewhere bad, and now you want me to hand him over to some lawyer? You know what the law says.”

Chapman sighed. “This particular lawyer is not representing social services. He is executing the will of Tobias’ father.”

For several seconds, Jake was still.

Then he said, “Tobias’ father.”

“Yes.”

“His will.”

“Yes.”

“Tobias doesn’t have a father.”

“Everybody has a father, Jake.”

“And he… just died?”

“I don’t know the details. If you could tell – ”

“I’ll put the word out,” Jake said, jumping to his feet. “Is there anything else?”

“No; you can – ”

“Okay. Thanks, Mr Chapman.” Jake raced out of the room. I prepared to leap off when he passed the bathroom on his way back to class, but he didn’t go back to class. He headed for the front of the school.

I considered stopping him. But… why? He had a perfectly valid reason, from Chapman’s point of view, to freak out and leave. And he was carrying a pretty personal message for Tobias, so it wasn’t like he had to gather all the Animorphs to discuss it. It was none of their business. It was none of _my_ business, and unlike Jake, I didn’t have a Chapman-approved reason to skip class.

<Jake, I’m going back to class,> I told him. And I did.

Needless to say, it was impossible to concentrate on anything for the remainder of the day. I don’t recall a single thing that was said to me before hometime.

“Cassie, are you okay?” Rachel muttered to me as we boarded the school bus.

“Me? Fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” I countered, trying not to let my voice do the high-pitched thing it does when I need to lie on the spot.

“You’ve been on edge all day. Is Jake okay?”

“Jake? Oh, yeah. Jake is great. Did I do something to make you think Jake wasn’t great?” (This was pathetic. I’d been fighting a secret war for years. I should be better at this.)

“I just haven’t seen him since history,” Rachel said, sounding puzzled.

“I’m sure it’s all great. Jake’s – ”

“Great. You said.” Rachel looked at Marco, who was pretending to be setting up his walkman instead of watching us, and shrugged. I sat down and stared fixedly out the window.

This was probably fine, right? Everything was going to be fine. Why wouldn’t everything be fine?


	3. Chapter 3

I rushed home and tried not to sit too obviously by the phone, waiting for Jake to call a meeting and explain everything.

He didn’t.

That made sense. It’s not like it was any of my business. Our resident orphan suddenly having a father out of nowhere, who was apparently dead now if it was about a will, and had presumably left him something, was the least weird thing to happen to the Animorphs in… months, at least. And there was a wedding happening, too, which was the very definition of a normal thing. A calm time for the Animorphs. I should be calm.

I felt like I was about to vibrate out of my skin.

The phone rang. I jumped, and almost tripped over my feet rushing to answer it.

“Jake!” I said. “I – ”

“What? No, it’s me,” Marco said. “Turn on channel six, quick.”

I turned on channel six. “Oh, a self-help show. Thanks, Marco, you’re really subtle. Hang on, is that – ”

“Yep.”

The show itself was generic – calm lighting, live audience, and a gentle-looking, suited psychiatrist dispensing sage advice. This one seemed to be doing so via speaker phone; it was a call-in show. Bit weird for TV, but the live audience appeared rapt, fixated on the man’s face. I was fixated, too, because even without his name helpfully printed along the bottom of the screen, I recognised him.

It was Doctor Wade Johnson. My school counsellor.

The woman calling in sounded about eighty, and she had a problem – she was lonely. Her husband had died a few years back, she didn’t have many friends her own age, and her kids didn’t visit any more. What could she do, other than sit alone in her house and wait to wither away?

“Well, Mrs Lewis, I’ve been talking to you for less than five minutes and I’m already fixated,” Dr Johnson said. “I think the answer’s as obvious to you as to me, right? We need to find you a hobby that involves going out and meeting people. Making friends. Otherwise, not only are you poorer for the missed opportunity, but so is the world.”

Mrs Lewis understood this, but she was shy. She didn’t know how to make friends, and nothing local was happening that interested her.

“Well, I see from your area code that you live in my area,” Dr Johnson said, “and I happen to know of a number of great community groups and hobby clubs around here. I mostly work with young people, of course, but there are several clubs for more mature people around, and also some all-ages clubs. A lot of people think ‘all-ages’ just means ‘young people’, but it doesn’t; in fact, if being shy is your issue, I have just the community group for you. I’ve seen dozens of people walk in from all walks of life and be welcomed with open arms, and they do good work in the community. I’d recommend you check them out. In fact, anyone in Mrs Lewis’ situation, no matter your age, gender or occupation, can benefit from this tip – there is no reason that you should ever feel alone, ever again.”

And he turned those reasonable, professional, caring eyes onto me, onto the whole town, and said in that tone of his that makes anything he says sound so goddamned reasonable, “They’re called The Sharing.”

“So the school counsellor has some shitty new self-help TV program and he’s recommending The Sharing?” Rachel asked. “That’s not _great_ news, but is it after-dark-barn-meeting worthy? The Sharing do weird publicity all the time. This guy isn’t exactly Jeremy Jason McCole.”

“I did some poking around,” Marco said, “and this show – ”

“Some ‘poking around’?”

“I read some TV magazines. This is a kind of, well, a practice run, this local season. Wade Johnson is apparently a big name in the mental health industry, and next year, the show’s going national. I can’t be sure, but I think maybe he’s… I don’t know, psychologically legitimising The Sharing? Like, if it goes big, and psychiatrists everywhere start recommending it...”

We all exchanged glances. Through meaningful looks, I was silently nominated the spokesperson, because of course I was.

“You got all that from some TV magazines?” I asked gently.

“It’s basic conjecture.”

“It’s a… possibility, but don’t you think you might be reading too much into it?”

“The Sharing tries to drum up publicity all the time,” Jake agreed. “All this really tells us is that the yeerks probably own the local TV station.”

“And enough money to push this show national next season, maybe,” Rachel added.

“I think we’re all starting to jump at shadows a bit,” I said. “We’ve been through a lot of weird stuff.”

“Yeah,” Marco said. “Maybe.”

“It’s a good thing we’re all here, though,” Jake said, “since we do have another important mission.” He looked at Tobias.

<It’s fine,> Tobias said. <I can do it myself.>

“What do you need, Tobias?” I asked.

<It’s no big deal. There’s just someone I need to vet; you know, make sure they’re not a controller?>

“Who?” Rachel asked.

<Aria Smith. My aunt.>

Marco scowled. “Is this the woman you used to live with? Because frankly, I don’t see how a yeerk could make someone like that any – ”

<No, this is a new aunt. One I just learned about.> He hesitated. <My father’s cousin, so I guess that’s not technically an aunt, but...>

Everyone in the barn just stared.

“Tobias, this is wonderful news!” Ax said. “To lack a _takluthan_ is a terrible fate.”

<I don’t know what that means, but this really isn’t a big deal,> Tobias said, to the obvious disbelief of everyone present.

“If your aunt’s turned up, then that means we can track down your dad, right?” Rachel asked, cracking her knuckles and clenching them into fists. “I think I want to… talk… to him.”

<Rachel, please. Everyone. Just… it doesn’t matter, okay? It’s just a job that needs doing, making sure she’s not a controller. I’d do it by myself, but we have four days to figure it out so we can’t afford to miss a single feeding.>

“What happens in four days?” Rachel asked, frowning. “Is she throwing you the world’s most socially awkward birthday party?”

“It’s Tobias’ birthday?” I asked. “Dude! How old?”

Tobias shifted from talon to talon, looking distinctly like somebody who just wanted to fly away. <If I explain, will you all stop asking questions?>

“That is one accepted purpose of a thorough explanation,” Ax said.

<I phoned this lawyer today. DeGroot. He’s my dad’s lawyer, or at least, he’s executing my dad’s will. Apparently.>

“Sorry to hear that,” Marco said.

<Makes no difference to me. But apparently, my dad left me this letter that’s supposed to be read to me on my fourteenth birthday. And before you ask, no; I don’t know why, or what’s in it, or who he is.>

“And this Aria?” Rachel asked.

<Been in Africa, apparently. Photographing animals. She didn’t know I existed, but she’s dad’s next-of-kin so DeGroot called her about the will thing. Now she wants to meet me.>

“Well,” Marco said, relaxing, “that’s pretty low-risk. Even if the yeerks managed to nab her since getting here from Africa, a meeting shouldn’t be too hard to – ”

<She wants me to live with her.>

More silence.

“Well,” David said eventually, “should we get started? I’m free right now, so...”

“I will go with you,” Ax said. Then he added, “Yew. Yew-wuh.”

“Me and Rachel before school,” I said, raising a questioning eyebrow at Rachel, who nodded.

“So Marco and me for after,” Jake said. “One of you is gonna have to double up with Tobias during school hours.”

“I will,” Ax said.

“Okay,” Jake said. “Sounds like a schedule.”

“With Ax, Tobias and me doing most of the work,” David mumbled.

Jake rolled his eyes. “We’ll pull more hours on the weekend, okay? And Tobias? Congratulations. If anyone deserves – ”

But Tobias was already flying away into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

Even with the sunrise reflecting off the window of her apartment, Aria was easy to see with the water-penetrating gaze of an osprey. She looked somewhere in her late thirties, of middling height, and fairly thin. Her very tan skin, prematurely wrinkled eyes and sun-bleached hair did indeed look like they belonged to someone who spent her days photographing animals in the hot African sun. I scrutinised her for any similarity to Tobias – same eyes? Hands? Ears? But I couldn’t tell.

<So did you and Tobias talk when he gave you the address?> I asked Rachel.

<Have you ever tried to get Tobias to talk?> she grumbled.

<Boys are idiots,> I said.

<Yeah. They are.>

I didn’t reply. Rachel wanted to talk, and if I gave her the space to do it in, she would.

It only took a few seconds of silence before she dove in to fill it. <I mean, is it that hard to accept that good things can happen? That people care about him and want him to have a family? We care about him; is it really that hard to believe that his Aunt will, too? That she can give him stability and good food and somewhere safer to sleep than a goddamn tree?>

<He’s had a pretty hard life,> I pointed out.

<He shouldn’t!>

<But he has. It’s easy for us. We take friendship and family and a given, like it’s something we have a right to. Tobias never had it, so why would he expect it?>

<He has it now. He has us.>

<Do you ever think about where we’d be if we weren’t in a war?>

<What do you mean?>

<I mean, what we’d be like. Us Animorphs. If we hadn’t been forced to band together, would we still be friends? I don’t think I’d be dating Jake. I’d barely know Marco. And we… we’ve been friends forever, and that’s never going to change, but you have to admit that our interests were getting really different and you had all those gymnast friends...>

<Cassie, we’re always going to be best friends. Don’t ever, ever doubt that.>

<I don’t, not now, not with the fight. But… I bet Tobias thinks about this sort of thing more than I do. I bet he wonders where he’d be without us, and what that makes him now. I’m gonna tell you something, but you can’t tell Tobias, okay?>

<Okay.>

<I did some reading,> I admitted. <A while back. On… on kids who get abused and neglected, you know? He laughs it off, he likes to pretend that’s not what happened to him, like it doesn’t count or something. But he’s not going to let himself believe things that make him truly happy. He’s not going to relax.>

<I know! It’s so stupid! He’s not with those people anymore; he has us, he has this Aria. He doesn’t have to hang out in the woods feeling sorry for himself all the time! He can let us help!>

<No, he can’t,> I insisted. <He can’t relax because every time he has, something’s hurt him. He can’t be too happy because every time he has been, something’s taken his happiness away. To you and me, well, we don’t see it like that; sometimes we’re happy, sometimes we’re sad, that’s life, and refusing to be happy won’t stop the sadness. But we didn’t grow up with people who would attack us for being happy. We didn’t grow up seeing relaxing as the same thing as being unprepared. Did you know, he won’t eat frozen mice from our barn stores, no matter how hungry he is? Occasionally, I’ve been able to supply him when it comes to really important missions, but most of the time he’ll insist on wasting a bunch of time hunting for no reason, which is stupid. None of us are expected to feed ourselves.>

<He does like to be self-reliant,> Rachel agreed. <I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, necessarily, but now that he has a family – >

<It’s the same thing. It’s the same reason he’s being weird about this. Because in Tobias’ world, anything somebody else gives you is something you can lose access to at any time, and that’s not a hawk thing; that’s something he learned as a human. And it’s hard for him to relax, really relax, even with friends, because when you’ve spent your whole life being treated as a forgettable burden who has to constantly prove your right to exist, how does something like friendship make sense? It’s like… it’s like animal instincts. How sometimes our morphs will try to do things that make sense to the animal, but are dangerous to us. The survival instincts that Tobias learned are different to the ones you and I learned.>

<You’d think we would have proven ourselves to him by now,> Rachel grumbled.

<It’s not about us. To you or me, a kind gesture is a kind gesture, but to Tobias there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it’s just more evidence that he’s a burden, another task pushing everyone closer to giving up on him. I’m sure you’ve noticed how he flies himself ragged doing scouting and so forth when everyone’s at school, trying to be as useful to the Animorphs as possible. He probably doesn’t think of it this way, not consciously, but that’s how his old survival instincts are tallying things. That’s what the books said, anyway. Why do you think he wanted to handle this mission himself?>

<That’s stupid.>

<Yeah, it kind of is.>

<Well, what are we supposed to do about it, then? Because you’ve kind of made everything look like it would be a step backwards. Even beating the shit out of those awful relatives of his would probably send him into self-pity.>

<Probably. We can only be good examples; keep caring about him, and making sure we include him in things, since he misses out on a lot what with not going to school. It’s the best way to get someone in his situation to relax, apparently. Well, therapy is the best way, but I don’t think that’s feasible.>

<And that’ll help? Doing what we’re doing?>

<Probably. Most people recover somewhat as they grow up, or at least learn to cope better, but it’s hard to tell how much someone will recover. Especially someone with as weird a life as Tobias. He might learn to relax and be happier and settle in with Aria. He might not. Honestly, we just have to be prepared to support him in either scenario. And whatever you do, don’t take him aside and lecture him on all this, because the last thing he wants is to think that you of all people still think of him as the kid who Jake had to save from getting his head flushed in a toilet.>

<That’s why you don’t want him to know you’ve been reading up.>

<Exactly.>

<So this Aria,> Rachel said. <What do you think? Yeerk or not?>

<Well, she’s behaving pretty normally, isn’t she? But then, they all do.>

Aria was, in fact, brushing her teeth.

<I don’t know; up and brushing her teeth this early in the morning?>

<Some people are morning people. You’re a morning person.>

<Because I have a war, and school! Tobias said she’s unemployed. Nobody gets up this early by choice.>

<Photographers probably do. Maybe she needed pictures of elephants in front of a sunrise, or something. I don’t know anything about nature photography.>

<You don’t?>

<Contrary to popular belief, having vet parents doesn’t mean I know everything about all animal-related jobs.>

<Well, that’s a terrible brand of makeup she’s using. I thought photographers knew about light and aesthetics and stuff.>

<I don’t think they put eyeliner on the tigers before taking their picture.>

<See? You do know something about nature photography!>

We watched Aria shoulder a handbag, fish some keys out of her purse, and head for the door. A minute or so later, she headed into the garage and got into a slightly scratched, cheap-looking car. Fortunately, Ax and Tobias showed up just then to relieve us, so chasing the car became their problem.

<Anything suspicious?> Tobias asked.

<She buys knockoff handbags,> Rachel said. <Can’t trust anyone who buys knockoff handbags.

Tobias laughed. <I’ll keep that in mind.>

We left them to it, sat through another pointless day of classes, and went home. Well, Rachel went home, while Jake and Marco went to take over Aria monitoring duty. I went to visit a friend.

The chee yeerk pool was exactly how I’d left it; a metal tub, about the size of a bathtub, with a metal screen down the middle so fine that to me it looked like a solid sheet. I moved to the left-hand side, tapped on the side a few times, and lowered my flat hand, palm down, just under the surface of the liquid.

It didn’t take long for the large slug to settle on the back of my hand. I lifted her to my ear and held still while she crawled in and got herself sorted.

<Hello, Aftran,> I said. <How have things been?>

<Hi, Cassie. Ah, you know. Busy, busy. I did some clockwise swimming, and then, just to shake things up, tried out a bit of anticlockwise swimming.>

<And Erek and Jenny’s yeerks?>

<They’re… better than I expected, honestly. They have some ravhan, sort of. They can form sentences, and trace concepts, and plan logically. They remember their lives in the Empire, and then not seeing or hearing anything, and then this Pool. But they’re…>

<Hmm?>

<Hollow, I guess you’d call it. They don’t know anything about the chee, and they’re not asking. They suffered greatly, and they’re not angry! Wouldn’t you be angry? They don’t question why they’re in this tiny Pool now, away from their siblings and leaders, and don’t seem to have very much sense of time. I don’t know how much they’re going to recover.>

<Well, they have you.>

<I’m not trained for this!>

<I don’t think anyone is. Wait, do yeerks have psychologists?>

<It’s… hard to be sure what yeerks have, or at least what we’re supposed to have, because our culture has changed a lot since we discovered… well, stole… spaceflight. But we have _ravdirani_.>

<Wait, I know this one! _Ravdira_ is lightning. Right?>

<Yes. _Ravdirani_ means ‘lightning-watcher’. A _ravdirani_ is like… like a cross between a mystic, and a counsellor, and a teacher. They ensure a healthy culture of the Pool and of the individual pockets of _ravhan_ within its yeerks.>

<Like an old-time priest,> I said.

<Sort of. Empire _ravdirani_ are, well, what you’d expect them to be, but they used to me more… harmonious, according to the subtext of the stories. Perhaps, on the homeworld, they still are.>

<The homeworld can’t help those two yeerks.>

<No. They can’t. Anyway, how have you been? You feel stressed?>

I laughed. <A lot has been going on.>

<Do tell.>

<It’s… probably going to be a lot faster for you to just see, actually. The past four days – actually, from internal experience, it’s more like five or six days – have, well. Take a look.>

She did. It’s always disconcerting to have a yeerk flip through your memories. Someone else thinking with your brain is a very distinct, and appropriately unnerving, situation.

She saw that awful other world, pulling up things that I didn’t want to remember. She met Ellimist, and I felt her relax a little as everything made more sense. She felt Jake die but already knew, from my lack of grief, that it couldn’t be real; she laughed when he returned (<Wow, for a god of spacetime, Crayak sure isn’t very smart!>), and immediately went silent when she realised what he was doing.

<Oh,> she said. <Oh, no. How is David?>

<Doing better than I expected,> I admitted. <He’s… emotionally stubborn.>

<Like Marco?>

<A lot like Marco. I’m kind of waiting for a lot of emotional dams to break in the Animorphs right now.>

<Man. I see what you mean. A lot did happen.>

<That’s not all.>

<There’s more?!>

<Keep looking.>

She did.

<Wow,> she said. <So, Tobias’ aunt?>

<Apparently so.>

<A trap?>

<You sound like Marco. I’ve been racking my brains trying to find a trap, but… how can there be? If someone recognised Tobias on a mission or something, and they know that Jake knows him well enough to pass on the lawyer message, why wouldn’t the yeerks just infest Jake? There’d be no reason to be this roundabout.>

<Hmm. True. And this wedding!>

<I know, right? Marco’s dad deserves a little happiness.>

<I’m glad the whole mom thing isn’t making it awkward. You know, for Marco.>

<Well, he’s… had time to grieve. He’d accepted she was dead before the whole Visser One thing came to light, you know? And then, the base off Royan Island… I guess he’s finally accepted it again. I feel awful for thinking this, but maybe it’ll be for the best for him to move on, too, you know? Not forget her, but… keep going.>

A pause.

<I’m sorry,> Aftran said. <I should have told you immediately. It just… it didn’t occur to me that you didn’t know.>

<What don’t I know?>

<Well, obviously I don’t have up-to-date Empire information, but neither Visser One nor her human host died off Royan Island. When I was found out, they were alive and well on the Anati homeworld.>

I froze. <Are you saying that Marco’s mom is possibly still alive?>

<I am saying that Marco’s mom is almost definitely still alive.>


	5. Chapter 5

Aftran and I put on wings and flew straight to Marco’s house, demorphing in a handy blind spot between trees in his backyard. He opened the door to my harder-than-necessary knocking.

“Cassie?” He glanced at my outfit and lowered his voice. “Did you morph to get here? Take a bus! We have secrecy to – ”

“I have Aftran with me,” I said up-front, because it seemed deceitful not to. “We have some news. Can I come – actually, no, out here is better,” I corrected myself, hearing a man and a woman laughing and bustling about in the kitchen.

“What happened? Who’s hurt?”

“Nobody! That I know of. This isn’t an Animorph thing, it’s… oh, Jesus, there’s no easy way to say this. Marco, your mother’s alive. Probably.” I studied his expression. After a moment, I noted, “You don’t look very surprised.”

“Don’t tell the others, okay?” he said.

“You knew,” I accused.

“Of course I knew! Why wouldn’t I?”

“How could you possibly – ”

“I asked Erek about it the day after we got back from Royan Island. The existence or nonexistence of yeerk leaders is kind of important within the yeerk Empire; everyone knew both Vissers had survived within the day, and it took less than a week for him to confirm that she still had the same host body. Last I heard, she was bouncing between the taxxon homeworld and somewhere called Anati. Apparently there’s some kind of political problem that nobody’s telling the Earth forces about, which probably has something to do with Visser One not wanting Visser Three to keep too close an eye on her.”

“And why didn’t you tell anyone else about this?”

“I know this is a tricky concept for you, Cassie, and I say this with the best of intentions, but not everything in the world is in fact your business.”

I felt my eyes narrow. “This is war stuff,” I said. “It’s relevant to our fight.”

“No! It isn’t! She’s nowhere near Earth, she’s not been near Earth, and she doesn’t seem to be having anything to do with Earth in the foreseeable future! If I hear that Visser One is showing up to kill us all, then you can be sure I’ll bring that information to the team, but right now, no. It isn’t relevant to the fight.”

“Marco,” a woman called from inside the house, “is everything okay out there?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right in!” he called back, then turned back to me. “And before you say anything, Cassie, it’s not relevant to _them_ , either, so don’t try to fault my dad for moving on.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t going to… what are you _doing_ , Marco?”

“I am _coping_. It’s really not as difficult as you seem to think it is. Go home, Cassie, and cope with your family, too.” He hesitated before adding, “Nice to see you up and about, Aftran. How goes things?”

“I’m… coping,” Aftran replied when I gave her my mouth.

“Right on. Later.” He shut the door, leaving me standing on the porch.

<Well,> I commented internally, <that was...>

<Touchy,> Aftran finished. <I mean, to be totally fair, I have never seen Marco not acting like that, but unless your memories are really skewed it doesn’t seem to be typical.>

<The last time you saw Marco would have been when you ran off in my body and he thought you were going to betray us to the yeerks. And then when I was a caterpillar and he was deciding whether or not to kill you.>

<Yep.>

<I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that if his current manner is identical to those scenarios, that is probably not a good sign.>

<So now what?>

<We butt out, I guess.>

<You’re giving up that easy? I know we can’t solve this situation in any practical way, but the Animorphs have enough emotional stress already.>

<Marco’s a ‘practical way’ kind of guy. Besides, I learned pretty early on that pushing Animorphs when they want me to stop doesn’t turn out well.>

<You have to help him.>

<If you come up with a way to do so that’ll actually work, let me know.>

We went home. Well, I went home, and brought Aftran with me. There was no hurry to get her back to her pool; we had three days, and Erek’s house wasn’t exactly inaccessible.

I went to bed, and drifted off to sleep, and when I woke up, I was being attacked by a giant bird.


	6. Chapter 6

The thing with its jaws around my leg, dragging me out of my tree, was not, I belatedly realised, a bird. There were several indications of this – the chest looked underdeveloped for a bird, the eyes were wrong, and of course the long, vicious teeth crushing my leg bone were kind of a clue. It was, however, giant, being nearly the size of the tree itself.

Screaming, I lost my grip on the branch I was clinging to and grabbed desperately at the beast’s head instead, ripping up feathers. It mostly ignored me. Who knew I’d be so helpless without my ability to morph? Did I use to be this helpless? I lashed out with my free heel and, miraculously, caught the beast directly in the eye. It opened its mouth in surprise, and I flopped down onto the ground.

This might have seemed an improvement to being literally in a predator’s mouth, but that was really a matter of perspective. I wasn’t any less dead on the ground; my right knee and a good amount of leg surrounding it was paste, so I couldn’t exactly run away. Furthermore, without the pressure of jaws, the severed artery in said leg was bleeding freely. Also, I’d cracked my wrist and collarbone on the rocks that helpfully ended my fall, and slammed my head into my formerly-friendly tree so hard that I couldn’t see straight. Or maybe that was the blood loss again. I really was losing a lot of blood.

“This adventure sucks,” I mumbled into the dirt as the jaws descended onto me.

And then, with a lot of noise and some kind of chaos, they weren’t above me anymore.

Painfully, trying to keep my vision straight and the remainder of my leg attached, I rolled onto my back. A second giant bird thing had dashed out of nowhere and knocked the first one over with, so far as I could tell, a headbutt. It roared and, when the first got up to meet the challenge, attacked with a single-minded viciousness rare in any part of the animal kingdom I was familiar with bigger than bugs. My attacker, sensibly, decided that a small meal wasn’t worth this, and left rather quickly.

The other bird thing turned to me. <Cassie, are you alright?>

<R… Rachel.>

<Oh, man, this is bad,> Tobias said, landing in the soil next to me. I blinked blearily at him. He was a red-tailed hawk, but Rachel was morphed. Rachel could morph!

<Cassie, there’s blood everywhere. You have to morph something! Anything!>

“Can’t,” I mumbled.

<Yes, you can! You have to focus!>

“Tried! I tried for days! I...”

<No, no, you have to acquire something first.> Tobias hopped onto my arm, digging his talons into my bare skin just a little. <Acquire me, Cassie. Think of the hawk. Let the hawk become a part of you. God, do humans even _have_ this much blood?>

I focused. Focus of any kind was difficult, but I was pretty experienced at acquiring by now. I drew in the pattern, and then I turned my attention to me becoming the hawk. Becoming Tobias.

I started to shrink. My wounds were closed over with new skin, thin pale skin that sprouted scales and feathers.

“I’m doing it!” I cried, delighted. “I’m do – ” my words became garbled as my throat changes and my face hardened. Arms to wings, powerful flight muscles crawling across my chest. Feet to long, killing talons.

I struggled up.

<Thank god you’re okay,> said Rachel the Ludicrously Sized Bird Monster.

I ignored her, dragging air under my wings to pull myself off the ground.

I flew.

For the first time in forever, I flew; warm drafts of air dispersing off stone, off sand, off anything heat-holding I could find buoyed me up and beneath me, the world spread out, unable to touch me. Unable to hurt me.

Sometime later I landed, much calmer, and demorphed. Rachel, now human, eyed me with some concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I can morph!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms around her.

“I know,” she said. “I was there.” But she hugged me back very tightly. “God, I’ve been so worried. Have you been by yourself?”

“Where are the others?” I asked.

<We… don’t know,> Tobias admitted. <We’ve been trying to search the area, but to be honest, we don’t really know how we got here. Maybe whatever happened only involved the three of us. Maybe not.>

“Searching will be faster with three of us,” Rachel said. “We’ll build up your stock of morphs again; get you some real firepower. By the way, do you have any idea where the hell we are?”

“None,” I admitted. “You guys have any theories?”

“Oh, yeah, we have a bet going on,” Rachel said. “If this is Ellimist nonsense, Tobias owes me ten dollars. If we’ve been kidnapped for some kind of alien zoo, I owe him.”

<If we’re in that Ellimist alien zoo he created to preserve humanity, it’s a draw,> Tobias added.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He wanted to protect Earth life. Why wouldn’t he just copy Earth? Cows and crows and elephants and stuff? Why make bird monsters?” I shook my head. “This doesn’t make sense. This is Earth, but it isn’t.”

<You’re right,> Tobias admitted. <That doesn’t make sense.>

“Pretty sure this isn’t Earth,” Rachel added. “Have you tried, well, breathing?”

“What about it?”

“The air’s weird. It’s great, I feel like I’m on a second wind all the time, but it’s weird.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. But look at this.” I picked up some of the feathers I’d ripped out of the bird monster’s face. “Feathers.”

<What about them?> Tobias asked.

“Feathers are a very specialised adaptation. They evolved only once on Earth, so far as we know, and it took ages. The chances of them evolving somewhere else are...” I thought about it. “Incalculable, actually. Shit.”

<That unlikely?>

“No, not incalculably small; literally incalculable. Too small a sample size. The only other planets we’ve seen are Leera and Iskoort, and we didn’t exactly do a thorough biological survey. We’ve seen some holograms of others, with Erek, but...” I shrugged.

<The andalite homeworld has birds,> Tobias said, <or something like them, anyway. Ax has a morph called a kafit that has feathers.>

I squinted at the feathers in my hand. They weren’t quite like Tobias’ feathers, like the feathers birds had to help with aerodynamic flight. Maybe it was a coincidence. The plants around me looked Earth-like, if not directly familiar, but there are only so many effective arrangements for something that roots itself to the ground and photosynthesises. I shrugged again. “Well then. I have no idea where we are. Ax will probably know, when we find him.”

<If we find him.>

“When we find him,” Rachel said firmly.

I morphed hawk again, and, once more, took off into the sky.

And opened my eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

<That was weird,> Aftran commented.

It was still dark. I was cold, because I was covered in sweat.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “They’ve been happening for a while. They’re actually a lot more logical than most of my dreams.”

<Not weird as in illogical. Most dreams are logical, actually; humans just remember the weird ones more. But that was just, well, weird.>

“How so?”

<Dreams do a few different jobs in the brain, but the important thing here is how they act as a memory selection process, choosing what connections between concepts to strengthen and store in order to make, well, _you_. An experience isn’t part of a person until they’ve slept on it.>

“That was perhaps the most disconcerting way you could have phrased that.”

<Sorry. Anyway, most of the mental equipment you use when you hallucinate a dream is the same as the mental equipment you use when you hallucinate the real world.>

“‘Hallucinate’ the real world?”

<Maybe that’s not the right word to use. I’m trying to be as precise as possible. The things that happen where you exist, in your brain, have a pretty thin connection to any physical reality. Your brain picks up shreds of sensory information and then just tells you it’s seeing a full picture, filling in details as you try to look closer at them. A sapient mind is pretty much always identical to a kid bullshitting a report about a book he just read the blurb to.>

“Great. Getting ‘your universe is a fragile and meaningless sliver of nothing’ talk from Ellimist wasn’t enough, now I’m getting it from aliens on my own conceptual level.”

<We’re getting off track. What I was trying to say is that the creation of a dream involves certain physiological processes, and so does the creation of an event as it’s happening, or the summoning of the memory of an event. Most of these processes are identical, because to most of the brain there’s no difference in these things or how they need to be processed, and even those that are different vary from person to person, because a brain’s operation is constructed from its use. But there are differences between them.>

“And?”

<Well, keep in mind that my exposure to human hosts has been _very_ limited. I’ve been educated on the process but – >

“Aftran, what did you find?”

<Nothing much. I’ve just never seen a dream built that way before. There was very little… construction happening. It felt more like a memory.>

This wasn’t surprising. I’d had some suspicions about those dreams, but not enough to state anything with certainty.

“So,” I whispered, “what do you think?”

<You know, if you talk to me mentally we can – >

“Not right now.”

<You’re kind of weirded out, I understand. Honestly, Cassie, your brain could just be wired up weird. There’s common architecture in how brains work, but there are always exceptions. Brain damage, or unusual genetics, or learning certain skills like creating music, or just… small differences that get strengthened by repetition can affect how information is processed, especially if something happened when you were very young. And with the amount of information aliens keep pouring into your mind – sorry for doing that back in the forest, by the way – I’d be surprised if it didn’t have some kind of effect on your mental architecture.>

I didn’t relax. “There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere. I can feel it.”

<It’s just that your other dreams felt perfectly normal.>

“I had other dreams?”

<Oh, yeah. Humans seem to think they get one or two dreams a night in REM, but that’s a myth. You dream pretty much the entire time you’re unconscious. But your other dreams followed pretty typical processing patterns, so far as brain regions go.>

“So, so far as what’s going on with the weird dream…?”

<I don’t have any more information than you do.>

“Hmm. You wanna know my running theory?”

<Of course.>

“Well, memories are mostly fake. I already know that. We edit them when we store them, when we use them; we build them into most-probably-happened scenarios that make sense. And, like you said, a lot of aliens keep putting information in my brain, and there are… side effects. I can mostly handle andalite writing now, but for a while, just seeing it triggered Ax’s distress signal. So there could be information locked away in there, probably by accident, that I’m not consciously aware of, right?”

<Of course. Didn’t Elfangor do that to Tobias on purpose when they met; gave him a bunch of yeerk information that took him some time to uncover? Such memories wouldn’t stay together indefinitely, though; not if they’re not being used.>

“Right. So, my thought is – weird, unfamiliar planet. Inability to morph. Things not… entirely making sense, and the whole thing being completely disconnected from everything else; no real before-scenario for us being there. What if Ax or Ellimist or Elfangor or even you, although I’m sure you would have recognised it in that case, accidentally sent me a chunk of memory when giving me other information, and my brain’s trying to fit it in with my other memories, making it mine and putting my friends in it?”

<Hmm. That’s a possibility. It could even be a fragment from that time you were a Leeran and absorbing all those memories while the continent blew up. Wow, your life is weird.>

“Not as weird as yours. Anyway, you can do brain stuff – is there a way to, well, check?”

<Maybe. I mean, it might be theoretically possible.>

“You sound reluctant.”

<I just don’t think it’s a very good idea.>

“Why?”

<Well, that’s a possibility. But it’s not the only one. Before you suggested it, I had another theory.>

“Hmm?”

<How well to you remember your missions?>

“As well as I can. I keep detailed notes. You know that.”

<And even those are going to end up with errors and accidental omissions, right? Memory’s not… great.>

“Unfortunately. Where’s this going?”

<Well, sometimes humans repress memories, too. And this defense mechanism exists for a reason. I know you care about truth and all, but if you’ve repressed something to protect your own mind and I go digging it up – >

“No, no; that’s an impossibility.”

<Because you’d want to hold onto any memory, no matter how harmful?>

“Because I’ve told the other Animorphs about these dreams too, and they don’t sound familiar to anyone. The chances of all six of us repressing the same thing? And nobody noticing, except that one of us starts having overly logical dreams? I’m not buying it.”

<… That’s logical.>

“But you’re still not going to risk it by digging around, are you?”

<No, I’m not.>

I sighed. There was no point in arguing. Either I’d lose, or I’d make my friend so stressed and resentful that she started digging around in my brain against her own wishes, which just sounded dangerous.

But there was one thing I could do to verify the reality of the dream. I closed my eyes, although in the dark there was little point, and concentrated. I concentrated on Tobias.

For a solid minute, nothing at all happened.

Then, nothing continued to happen.

<Well, that answers that, I guess,> Aftran said.

“Then will you – ”

<No.>

I got up. There was no way I’d be able to go back to sleep, and I needed to be up early for Aria-watch, anyway. Aftran didn’t want to spend too much time out of the Pool – apparently very nearly starving to death can create food anxieties, who knew – so I did my morning chores and dropped her back off before my shift.

I was on shift with Marco, who Did Not Want To Talk, so we watched Aria’s boring morning routine mostly in silence. Not only did she not go near any known Yeerk Pool entrances, she was rarely out of our line of sight for more than about five minutes. Looking good so far; but of course, it was only day two.

I had no idea how to help Marco. There are books on what people go through when their parents die. There are not books on what people go through when pretending their parents are dead to hide the fact that they’re alien slaves.

But I had to do _something_. That was my job.


	8. Chapter 8

“Marco’s right,” I declared. Jake, Rachel, Marco and I were hanging out at the back of the oval at lunch time.

“Unlikely,” Rachel said automatically. Then, “About what?”

“We should be paying attention to this Doctor Johnson thing. Maybe it’s not a big deal. Maybe it is. But we should figure it out.”

Jake shrugged. “But it’s most likely a waste of – ”

“That chat room looked like it would be a waste of time and we found an insane billionaire cannibal alien!” I pointed out. “Yeerks infesting an entire new Earth species to infiltrate a military base sounds really important and all we found was a toilet!” We all fell silent and glanced around at that. We knew there were no yeerks around – the birds and mice and so forth that might be lurking would be far too small to infest – but it was disquieting to be reminded that being away from other people and being away from other controllers didn’t necessarily mean the same thing.

“See,” Marco said, “this is what I’m saying. The whole Sharing thing is dumb but – ”

“It’s one of their primary recruitment methods,” Jake said. “Seriously, out of the four of us, have any of us _not_ had some teacher try to recruit us?”

We all looked at each other.

“And if we’re really honest,” I added quietly, “if we hadn’t already known it was sinister...”

Marco snorted. “I would never have joined. Sounds too much like a cult, even if it was all just humans. Besides, a group with Chapman in it? Way uncool.”

“You’re so full of shit, Marco,” Rachel snapped. “Way back in our very first mission, when we went to the beach with the Sharing, you thought they were the greatest group ever.”

“You would have been taken the same way Tom was,” Jake said. Everyone looked at him; he stared at the grass. “He joined for a girl. He wanted to impress her, joined, and ended up following her into a secret meeting. They infested him to maintain secrecy when he saw more than he should.” He looked at Marco. “Are you seriously telling me that if Lacey or Anette or Rachel, back before the war, had invited you on a date at a Sharing meeting…?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. Marco just shrugged. I wished I had some paper and instead mentally filed away the question of how Jake knew Tom’s infestation story.

“Chapman tried to sell the Sharing to Jake to help him get into college,” I said, to pull us onto a less awkward topic. “They do a lot of extracurriculars, have some rich members who might write some impressive recommendation letters. Doctor Johnson mentions them in our sessions sometimes; not enough to sound pushy, just enough to sound helpful. Emphasises the emotional support and stuff. He has a way of getting into your head, a talent for seeing exactly what you need and giving it to you. He’s helped me enormously even though he doesn’t have a clue about the stuff that’s really bothering me. On TV, he could be pretty dangerous.”

“So what do we do?” Rachel asked.

“Cassie’s already a patient of his,” Marco said. “Maybe, during her next session, we could cause some kind of distraction and give her a chance to peek around his office?”

I shook my head. “If you cause any kind of possibly-andalite distraction during school hours – ”

“We’ll have half the yeerk forces in the city on our heads,” Jake finished. “And Johnson probably wouldn’t be among them.”

“That’s true,” Marco conceded. “If anything, they could play the whole thing as some kind of, of terrorist attack – ”

“Terrorist attack?” Rachel snorted.

“Anyway. If there’s a chance of non-controllers seeing alien stuff, they’ll just funnel them down into the Yeerk Pool under the guise of some kind of safety protocol. They’d prefer to get them voluntarily, but if it comes down to it… yeah, that won’t work.”

I cleared my throat. “I doubt he leaves anything important at school, anyway. It would be better if we could search his house.”

Jake nodded. “So we need to follow – ”

“I have his address. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“He has a wife and four-year-old daughter. I don’t know if they’re controllers, but...”

The others thought about this. I kept an eye on their expressions. They just looked thoughtful. Good.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “So we morph small animals and be careful when – ”

“That’s too dangerous,” I said quickly. “Every time we tried that on Chapman, someone nearly died. Besides, what if we need to hack, or something? We need Ax, with fingers.”

More thought.

“I have an idea,” Marco announced. He looked at me. “You’re going to hate it.”

I nodded. “What is it?”

“Well, some humans would be perfectly welcome in the Johnson household,” he shrugged. “Such as Wade Johnson.”

I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

“Cassie...” Jake began.

“I know, I know. Some things are more important. It’s not the first line we’ve crossed.” I looked away. Tried not to look nervous.

“So we need a way to keep him out of the house,” Rachel said.

“A crisis with a student would probably do it,” I said. “Like if someone said they really had to see him right at the end of school hours, then just delayed him for a while...”

Jake nodded. “Great. So Cassie manufactures a personal crisis, and the rest of us – ”

“I can’t,” I said.

“You can’t?”

I shook my head. Stayed calm. I’d practiced this a dozen times, checked my expression and body language in the mirror. It wasn’t perfect. It was good enough.

“You guys know I’m not a very good liar,” I said, “and I’ve been seeing this guy, this professional, for months. He knows me too well. If I lied about a crisis, I wouldn’t be able to keep that up for nearly long enough. We’d have to manufacture an actual crisis for another patient.” I bit my lip. “Maybe...”

Marco shook his head. “Way too complicated. We’d have absolutely no control over that kind of situation. Why is everyone looking at me like that?”

“Because we don’t have to manufacture anything,” Rachel said.

Jake sighed. “Marco, dude, I hate to bring this up, but...”

“But what?”

“But your mom died at sea a couple of years ago and now your Dad is marrying your math teacher,” Rachel finished bluntly. “If anyone was going to suddenly need the help of a school counsellor they’d never spoken to before...”

Marco shot me a venomous look, which I met calmly.

“Hey,” Rachel said, waving a hand between us. “None of this is Cassie’s fault. She agreed with _you_ about how important this is, remember?”

He just narrowed his eyes at me. I kept my expression innocent.

“Okay,” he conceded. “It makes strategic sense. Cassie acquires Johnson, I have a freakout after school and delay him while you guys go and search his house. Is that your plan, Cassie?”

“It’s not...” Jake began. “Look, it’ll work, right? So we – ”

“No, it won’t work.”

Rachel crossed her arms. “Why not?”

“Because Johnson will realise something’s up as soon as he gets home and his wife points out he was already home, so we should only do this if we want the yeerks to know we’re onto this whole TV thing.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” I said. “Putting them on guard will just use more of their resources.”

“And when they start wondering about the convenience of a human kid freaking out at the exact right time? Teachers and students are all on the yeerk hit list; both me and Nora come here every day. If they’re at all suspicious of me – ”

“Yeah, that’s a point,” Rachel said. “Dammit.”

“The yeerks have never been very great at that kind of thinking,” I pointed out.

“You want to risk it?”

“If it came down to it, if it really came down to it, we could always pretend you weren’t there and a morphed andalite – ”

“Is keeping detailed enough tabs on my life to pull that off, and was able to acquire me? Yep, that makes me look innocent.”

“Were these things always this complicated?” Jake asked. “I swear our plans used to be simpler.”

“And we used to almost die a lot,” I said.

“We still almost die a lot,” Rachel pointed out.

I didn’t answer. I let everyone think. People tend to get attached to their own plans; they prefer to find a way to make them work, instead of throwing them out.

“There’s a way to make it work,” Rachel said. “The whole freakout thing is an unnecessary complication. We just have Marco book a session and insist on doing it out of school hours. Then whoever morphs him can just tell his wife that the meeting was cancelled. It’s reasonable that the andalites would take advantage of his absence from his home to search it.”

“Fine,” Marco sighed. “But I want backup.”

“Wouldn’t want them trying to drag you down to the Yeerk Pool,” Rachel agreed.

“I want Rachel or David,” Marco said.

The two Animorphs who he’d never in a million years open up in front of. I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

“Because they have the most buttkicking morphs,” Marco shrugged. We looked into each other’s eyes, each trying to look as innocent as possible.

“Okay,” Jake said. “Rach – ”

“Neither of them will work,” I said. “David’s got his dad stuff to deal with right now; we can’t drag him into this. And Rachel should be focusing on Tobias’ thing right now. It should be me or Jake.” The two Animorphs who already knew the most about Marco’s situation, although I was pretty sure Jake didn’t know his mother was still alive.

“Why – ”

“Because Jake and you are both good strategic thinkers in opposite situations. Together, you could get out of most spots. And I know Doctor Johnson. I’d be better at spotting any warning signs in his behaviour than anyone else.”

Jake nodded. “Good points. We could both go. A tiger kicks more butt than a lion, anyway.”

“And leave less people to help with Aria? How much backup do you need, Marco?”

“None of this will work,” Rachel said. “What Marco said about an andalite morphing him? That applies to Johnson, too. He’s going to wonder how andalites acquired him. Even worse than implying we have human allies would be implying that we are humans.”

“We could get Ax to – ” I began.

“No, he’d be too tense and suspicious to play along with anything if an actual andalite gets close enough to touch him,” Rachel said. “They’re pretty terrifying to yeerks.”

“So it won’t work,” Marco concluded. “We should be focusing on Tobias’ thing anyway. That’s fine, this is probably nothing.”

“No, Marco, I trust your judgement,” I said. “You said this could be big and I think – ”

“Then trust my judgement now when I say it’s not a big deal, Cassie!” he snapped, glaring at me. This time, I glared back.

“Ooookay,” Jake said, after several seconds of tense silence. “Is there something going on here that – ?”

“No,” Marco said. “Nothing’s going on.” Nobody believed him, of course.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. Marco just refuses to acknowledge that even though his father’s had three and a half years to recover, he knows his mother’s only been dead about a year.”

Jake and Rachel relaxed. Marco’s expression softened slightly, and he raised an eyebrow at me. I rolled my eyes.

Rachel stretched and cracked her knuckles. “Whelp. I tried to play along with brainstorming a subtle plan, but this looks like a situation for the good old Plan B.”

“The what?” Jake asked.

“Following a controller until he’s alone, bonking him on the head and tying him up in the shack.”

“Even with a freed Doctor Johnson, we’d still risk not getting the whole plan from him,” I said.

“So? Without him, the plan can’t go ahead. We don’t need the details.”

“And if they get a new psychologist to play his part?”

“Then we can always break into their house for information,” Rachel shrugged.

We looked at each other. I tried to avoid Marco’s smug gaze.

“Sounds like a very solid plan, Rachel,” he said.

“Thank you for your feedback, Marco,” Rachel replied politely.

Jake looked, bewildered, from Animorph to Animorph. “What the hell is going on with this group?”

  



	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, Jake and I watched Aria cut sandwiches. She always packed her own lunch, in a battered thermos and heavy-duty lunchbox that had probably been dragged all over Africa.

<Oh, look,> Jake remarked idly. <Ham.>

<What about it?> I asked.

<Marco and I were having a bet on whether she’s vegetarian. I’m out five dollars.>

<Marco played you. We watched her put ham in the sandwiches yesterday, too. Besides, that protein powder she makes up in the thermos has to be meat-based, right?>

<Not necessarily. Plenty of protein powders come from plants.> After a momentary pause, Jake continued, <Today’s the day. Day three.>

<The day that we should be sure whether she’s a controller or not, assuming our surveillance had been good enough.>

<How are you feeling about the whole thing? You think we’re gonna see her disappear into the Yeerk Pool today?>

<I don’t know. It’s unlikely.>

<Yeah.> Jake paused. <You think Tobias – ?>

<I don’t know. Even if he does, there’s stuff a human _nothlit_ can do in the war.>

<Not much, though. Remember when he was stuck as a hawk, and every little thing he did was dangerous because he couldn’t heal? Being a human is way riskier, because he could be recognised or infested.>

<We could be recognised or infested.>

<We can heal and escape much better than he’d be able to.>

Jake was right, of course. Being a human _nothlit_ wouldn’t put Tobias out of the fight, but it’d cut down a lot on what he could do. <He could join the Star Defenders.>

<How would that go? ‘Hi, Melissa, I can’t tell you how I know who you are but I want to fight the yeerks too’? Besides, do you see him fitting in with a bunch of gymnasts? He barely wants to hang out with us.>

I didn’t think that was a fair characterisation, but Jake was right on the Star Defender thing. I wondered whether I wanted Aria to be genuine. Whether I wanted Tobias to turn his back on her if she was. What was best for Tobias? What was best for the world?

The truth was, there was no mission here. Monitoring Aria was important in the same way that monitoring any of our parents was important, but that was it. So why was I so nervous about this third day, the day when we’d be almost certain? Did I want her to be a controller?

I supposed it didn’t really matter what I wanted. Either she was a controller or she wasn’t. But I was still musing over the issue as I went to pick up Aftran (we didn’t exactly have an infestation schedule set out, but I didn’t think it was psychologically good for her to be in the Pool without real company for too long), sat through classes, and into my next counselling session with Doctor Johnson.

<So,> Aftran commented, <this is a counsellor’s office.>

<Yeah.>

<Shouldn’t there be a long red couch and a clipboard?>

<You’ve already seen this place in my memories,> I pointed out, surveying the boring little office with its cheap desk, old chairs and rickety-looking filing cabinet in the corner. Doctor Johnson sat behind said desk, smiling that friendly smile that was going to entrance lonely old ladies into joining the Sharing.

<You’re no fun,> Aftran grumbled.

<You’re thinking of a psychiatrist. This is just a school counsellor. Anyway, I think those couches are just in the movies.>

“So. Cassie,” Doctor Johnson said. “How have you been feeling?”

“Fine.”

“No panic attacks?”

“No. I mean, sometimes I think I might get them, but then I try the breathing exercises and they stop.”

Doctor Johnson nodded. He never took notes during our sessions, but I saw him go distant for a second, filing the fact away, looking a bit like a chee accessing the chee-net. (He wasn’t a chee. I’d already checked.)

“Just so you know,” he said, “that may not always work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the attacks go away, sometimes they don’t. I’m not telling you this to scare you, only to prepare you. Sometimes, people who have suffered trauma feel their symptoms worsening, or failing to get better, and they think they’re backsliding, like they’ve failed in healing, somehow. But this isn’t the case. Healing is sporadic; it stalls, it moves forward, it backslides, and healing perfectly with no scars isn’t our goal. Our goal is making things as psychologically easy for you as we can. So if you don’t manage to stave off panic, that’s not a failure. It’s just a possible outcome that we have to be prepared for.”

I nodded. “About trauma,” I said, “are there any books you’d recommend on it? To learn more about how it works, how to recognise it, that kind of thing?”

<Planning on becoming the official Animorph therapist?> Aftran asked me, amused.

<I sure as hell don’t want to, but nobody seems to want to talk to a real one.>

<One of the chee – >

<The chee can read all the psych textbooks they want, but they’re just not going to have the instinct and emphathy to deal with the mental ramifications of violence on a human teenager. They can’t give us anything we can’t get from books.>

Doctor Johnson was talking. “Understanding how your mind works can certainly give you a greater sense of control over it,” he was saying, as he pulled a pen out of the scattered mess on his desk and scrawled on some notepaper. “A lot of books use technical language, but these three might be useful.” He handed the note to me. I tucked it into my pocket.

“I saw you on TV,” I said.

“What did you think?”

I shrugged. “My parents would probably like it.” _What would happen if I asked him directly?_ I wondered. _What would happen if I just said, ‘so, what’s the Yeerk Empire up to now’? Apart from me being dragged down to the Pool, I mean._

“I’m not leaving the school, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he assured me. “I’ll still be here for you.”

“Except you’re a TV star now.”

He laughed. “Someday, maybe – ”

He was cut off by somebody bursting through the door. An older student, who I’d seen around school, but never actually met. He glanced at me, then looked to Doctor Johnson. “You’re needed.”

“I’m in the middle of – ”

“Right now.”

“Ah. Well. Excuse me, Cassie. I’m sorry about this, but – ”

“Next week?” I asked brightly.

“Of course.”

“Go be a big star, Doctor Johnson.”

He rushed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He was in such a rush, I realised, that he hadn’t shooed me out of the room first.

My eyes strayed to the filing cabinet in the corner. It took me a moment to realise that I hadn’t pointed them there.

<Aftran.>

<Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean it.> She let go. <You have to wonder what’s in there, though, right?>

<A bunch of very private files on students, I imagine.>

<Or, maybe, secret yeerk details on how the Empire is gonna dominate the world through television?>

<Sometimes you still act like an eight-year-old girl, you know that?>

<My apologies, oh great and wise elder of fifteen whole years of age.>

I looked at the filing cabinet again. I looked, this time.

<It’s probably nothing,> I said. <Nothing to us, I mean. Just notes on students.>

<Yeah. Probably.>

<It’s not like I even know how to pick a lock, anyway.>

<I don’t think it has a real lock.>

<I can see the – >

<Oh, you need a key to open it, in theory, but I think it’s just a latch. Easy to lever up. Not that a lock would bother me either, but I can’t see anything small enough to pick one of that size.>

<How do you know how to pick a lock?>

<I used to be – I used to _infest_ – the daughter of a billionaire. She was a prime kidnapping target. You’d be amazed at the stuff the rich teach their kids. Just slipping away enough to do yeerk stuff was hard enough.>

<Well. Even if it is a latch in there, it can’t be that easy to break in.>

<I could do it with that letter opener over there.>

I picked up the letter opener and inspected it. <How?>

<Can I show you?>

<I suppose.>

Aftran headed for the cabinet and inspected the door around the lock closely. <Yep. I don’t think this lock is going to stop me from just...> she slid the letter opener into the gap around the door, near the lock, and slid it until it met metal. She carefully lifted the small metal latch up, then pulled the door open. <Easy. Kind of pathetic, actually. Nothing’s stopping us from just reaching in and learning anything about anyone we want.>

<It really is poor practice for a mental health professional,> I agreed, taking control back to leaf through the row of yellow files.

<Is a counsellor a mental health professional? Technically?>

<No idea.> I located ‘Williams, Cassandra’ and flipped it open to skim the notes.

Doctor Johnson used a lot of code, or possibly just technical abbreviations – I had no way to tell the difference. What I could read didn’t surprise me. I had post-traumatic stress disorder, I suffered from anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, nightmares and – this bit brought me up a little – possible paranoid delusions. I read a little further, and found myself frowning. <I do not obsess over other people’s problems as a coping mechanism!>

<Yes, you do,> Aftran said.

<I just… it’s my job to look after the other Animorphs.>

<It is? Why?>

<Because somebody has to.>

<Whether they want looking after or not?>

I froze. Not because of anything Aftran had said. Because I’d turned to the back page of my file, and everything I might have suspected or wondered or feared about the dangers of speaking to Doctor Johnson… wasn’t there. What was there, was something I never expected. A list, many items on it already crossed out, a few of them highlighted or annotated with things like ‘good for impulse control’ or ‘to help reduce anxiety??’ or ‘only if suicide risk becomes critical’.

The average snoop would have thought it to just be more code. Maybe drug names or something. Some of them sounded like drug names, particularly ‘Andoren 042’ and ‘Saldiva 335’. There was also ‘Esplin 224’, ‘Derane 097’, ‘Illim 003’…

<Aftran, what the hell am I looking at?>

<They’re all yeerk names.>

<Yeah, I got that. Why are they here? Why is there a list of yeerk names in my file?> I glanced at the annotations again. <Is this… is this what I think it is?>

<I have the same information that you do, Cassie.>

Bile rose in my throat. I had the strangest impulse to just start laughing. I’d envisioned a dozen futures of galactic cooperation, a dozen ridiculous fantasies of a world after the war where yeerks and andalites and humans and hork-bajir could live in peace, trade with each other, use their strengths to compensate for each other’s’ weaknesses. In no future I’d ever envisioned had something as horrible as this ever existed.

<It’s yeerk therapy,> I said. <He’s… he’s matchmaking! Look at this – because I have panic attacks, Illim 003 might be a good match for me, since they’re good at controlling panic. Oh, but Andoren is apparently a good bet to prevent me from attempting suicide, which to me seems like something any damn yeerk would be able to prevent so I don’t see what makes Andoren so special – >

<Cassie, you’re starting to freak out. Calm down!>

<Calm down? Why don’t _you_ calm me down? Apparently Johnson’s yeerk thinks that’s your job!> My hands were clenched, scrunching the file. <This is ridiculous! This doesn’t help anyone; it… it uses force, uses slavery, to make someone seem normal to the outside world so they’re not a problem anymore. No wonder his reputation as a counsellor is so great! This is like… this is like nonconsentually drugging everyone for compliance, times a billion. This is – >

<You knew the Empire was like this, Cassie! You know how The Sharing operates! This isn’t new, it’s just… written down.>

<I knew we were just bodies to them. I didn’t expect him to treat it like… like a favour, like he could match human beings up to specific slavers and – >

<Cassie, we have to leave. If you want me to take over and get us out of here – >

But it was too late. The door opened. I stood, frozen, like a deer in headlights, file in hand, as I stared at Doctor Johnson. He stared back.

“Cassie,” he said, “those files are private.”

I swallowed. <Aftran, help!>

Aftran jumped in, pasting a nervous, apologetic smile on my face. “Are these different drugs?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t prescribe you anything without talking it over with you first,” he lied. My heart jumped.

<Cassie, you need to calm down, I can only do so much for your autonomic responses.> “Do you think I need drugs? Am I that sick?”

“Drugs are one thing that might help you,” he said. “They’re not the only possible avenue to explore. If you feel comfortable going on without them, then you don’t need them. Nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, Cassie.”

I forced myself to focus. To calm down. To put everything aside for later. My heartbeat slowed.

“Okay,” Aftran said. “Thanks, Doctor Johnson.”

He held out his hand for the file, smiling. Aftran put it in his hand.

And I didn’t know if Aftran was thinking openly or if I was, or maybe we both were, but together, we reached the conclusion – if we walked out of here, it would be over. We might have convinced him that I didn’t know anything, but we were a leak. We’d go on a list. He’d take my parents, in case I made some damaging offhand remark to them. He’d try to take me.

<What do you think?> I asked. <There’s nothing we can do right now, is there?>

<You want to leave? Let him take them, live with it, be too hard to get down to a Pool yourself? Or go on the run?>

<Do you have any better ideas?>

<Negotiate.>

<He’s a yeerk!>

<So am I. You got me.>

<This is the worst idea ever.>

<Worse than what you did in the forest?>

<This is the second worst idea ever.> I met Doctor Johnson’s gaze. Neither of us had let go of the file.

He frowned, puzzled.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

“Cassie, it’s almost time for – ”

Before I even asked, Aftran put tears in my eyes. She might protest about not being good at autonomic responses, but the way my face flushed felt pretty realistic to me.

“I’m just worried about this friend,” I said. “Things are so hard for him right now, and I… I...” I tried to recall everything in my file. Anxiety… coping mechanism… suicide risks…

<Aftran, can you do a panic attack?>

<I don’t know. I can try.> She took control of my diaphragm, pulling in heavy, ragged breaths, and while that might not have technically been a panic attack, my response to somebody else suddenly wresting control of my breathing sure was.

“It’s just so hard,” I whispered, bringing my hands to my eyes. “Like, why am I even trying? Even you think I need to be drugged! It’s all feels so pointless sometimes.”

“Hey, hey, we can work through this,” Doctor Johnson said calmly. “Sit down and breathe with me, okay? We can breathe together.”

<This won’t last,> Aftran warned me. <He knows you too well. Is there a plan here, besides stalling?>

<I’m thinking!> I sat down. Doctor Johnson sat down. Between us was his desk, and behind me was the door. Unless he wanted to leap through a painted-shut window, he had to get past me to leave.

<You’re going to kill him?> Aftran asked.

<I could. Easily. The question is, could I do it without him raising an alarm? Could I grow a hork-bajir blade and get it across his throat before – oh, god, Aftran, I’m so sorry. Your brother.>

<We can have feelings and be miserable later! Focus!>

We did the breathing exercises. I kept my eyes on Doctor Johnson’s throat the whole time. I could kill him, and my chances of getting out were good, but not only would that be… messy to clean up, it would involve two deaths. Deaths we might be able to avoid.

Or I could negotiate. How? What did I have to work with? If I failed…

<Then you can kill him then, if you have to. You have nothing to lose by trying.>

Somewhere, a bell rang. Students started filing out of classrooms. I met Doctor Johnson’s eyes.

“In our first session,” I told him, “you made me a promise. You promised that you’d never lie to me in this room. Remember?”

“Of course.”

“And you still intend to keep that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I reached across the desk and took his hands. This surprised him, but he didn’t pull out of my grip immediately. Good. I needed to make sure he wasn’t pushing some panic button or something.

“I want to understand why,” I said quietly.

“Why I won’t lie?”

“Why you pick individual yeerks for individual hosts. Why does it matter? Won’t any yeerk do?”

There it was – a look of shock and confusion as the color drained from his face. He tried, automatically, to pull back; I gripped his hands harder. As usual, my small body was much stronger than his big adult one, because I didn’t have to worry about silly little things like damaging my own muscles and bones through overuse.

“Don’t shout,” I said, as he opened his mouth. “I don’t intend to hurt either of you. Cooperate and we all leave this room alive, do you understand?”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Just somebody looking for information, Doctor John – what’s your actual name?”

“Koret. Koret 112.”

“Just somebody looking for information, Koret.”

“And then?”

“Then you can consider yourself a prisoner of war,” I said quietly, as Aftran planned the details in the back of my mind. “Your host will be given a route out of the city and a chance to get back on his feet. You will be kept comfortable, protected and fed until the end of this war, at which point whatever happens will, I suppose, depend on who ultimately wins. In all honesty, I think you’re going to be safer and more comfortable with us than among your own side. We don’t torture or abuse our prisoners, and we certainly don’t let insane war generals lop their heads off for minor inconveniences.” <Can we actually do this?> I asked Aftran.

<There’s absolutely no reason why not.>

<This is so much better than starving our enemies to death. We should’ve thought of this a year ago.>

“You’re with the Voluntary Movement,” Johnson said.

I shrugged. <Are we?> I asked Aftran.

<I don’t think so? Technically, I’m dead and you’re…>

<A warrior for a third side with occasionally aligned goals.>

<Yeah.>

“What do you want to know, exactly?” Koret asked.

“The yeerk matchmaking. Why?”

“Should a host and yeerk not be as compatible as possible?”

“I wasn’t aware that you lot cared about that kind of thing.”

“‘My lot’ can be – nearsighted.”

“Nearsighted.”

He nodded. “You have infested friends, in your group?”

“How do you know I’m not infested?”

Koret chuckled. “You’re not on the Pool schedule, Cassie. I keep tabs in all my kids, for obvious reasons. Infestation is… difficult. Ask your friends. You can simply mix and match, but dealing with the resistance of recalcitrant hosts is exhausting. The higher-ups seem to think that basic practicality is treason; they call it ‘host sympathy’, but they betray their own agreement by funnelling all of this time and energy into The Sharing in the first place instead of simply herding humans underground en masse.”

<Something’s weird here,> Aftran said.

<I know.> Koret spoke as if he cared about finding easy, nonresisting hosts for each yeerk, but that wasn’t what his notes had suggested. His notes had suggested the opposite. “That would get more hosts,” I pointed out, “and even resisting hosts can be controlled. I’ve seen it. Exhausting, maybe, but is it worth all this trouble?”

“Whose side are you on, Cassie?”

“I’m just trying to understand. Why bother with compatibility?”

“Because someday, one way or the other, this war will be over,” he snapped. “Someday, this planet will be completely under the dominion of the yeerks, or the andalites will arrive in time to rescue it, and I don’t know which of those will happen first but either way it would be nice to leave at least one species with the ability to move on! That’s what nobody seems to understand. _War is a transitional period_ , and nobody seems to care what we’re going to transition _into_.”

The anger was sudden, shocking. If I hadn’t been holding his hands, I would have flinched back. <Something’s off.>

<It’s not him.>

<What?>

<They switched control. Can’t you see? The body language is different. They could hide it if they tried, but they’re not. That’s Wade Johnson.>

“You’re in this together!” I gasped.

“Yes.” He looked away.

<Koret again.>

“Why? Why would you – he –go along with this?”

“Go along? It was Wade’s idea.”

“Why?”

“Because, as I said, this war will someday be over. If we win, we want compatible, useful hosts, hosts who are dependent on us, possibly even grateful to us, and being the cure to their psychological ills is amazingly helpful for that. If you humans win, you’re going to want a world where this whole thing caused as little damage as possible. You’re going to have a lot of traumatised former hosts, and reducing that trauma as much as possible is a worthy goal.”

“And from your point of view, this war is basically a throw of the dice,” I concluded. “You can’t affect it, so there’s no real point in fighting each other. So you concocted this little… system… that allows you both to push for what you want, depending on how things shake out.”

“It really is a lot easier to have a cooperative host,” Koret said, nodding. “With my skills, he’s become so much better at his job. I indulge his human-centric matching, and he is quiet while I make deals with yeerks to get them on the consideration list. It works out.”

“You know what protects kids from trauma more than pairing them with the perfect slaver? Not enslaving them!”

His hands gripped mine. <Johnson again,> Aftran reported.

“Have you ever seen the results of a suicide, Cassie?” he asked me.

I looked away.

“Have you seen a thirteen-year-old lying dead in a pool of her own vomit after her body tried to expel the drugs she was so sure would solve all her problems by simply ending her life? Have you seen the ring left on a bathtub after somebody bleeds out in one because it was all just _too hard_? These are momentary impulses, even if they’re recurring ones, and they can be treated. These people can be saved, but we’re not doing it! We’re not putting in the resources needed to let these kids actually grow up! And with the yeerks here, it’s become even worse – they’re putting as much pressure on as they can to funnel people into The Sharing. Are yeerks a great solution? No. They’re not. But you know what they are going to do, Cassie? They’re going to _keep these kids alive_ through this war.”

“So you’re collaborating with the very people who are exacerbating the problem you’re worried about.”

“I will collaborate with whomever I need to, to save as many people as I possibly can.”

Truth be told, I wasn’t paying as much attention to the conversation as I should have been. I was in control, but I was letting Aftran think and feed me lines, because my attention was entirely taken up by the most difficult morph I’d ever done in my life.

I’d done partial morphs before. But I’d never done so across the desk of someone who knew exactly what I looked like, whose hands I was holding, and who absolutely could not know that I had morphing abilities. I couldn’t change my height. I couldn’t change my skin or hair color. I couldn’t change my physical features.

But if I was going to walk out of that room and not end up in the arms of the yeerks, I needed thought-speak.

My legs were already Rachel’s so far as I could tell, but thought-speak hadn’t kicked in yet. I clenched my jaw and focused. Arms… my arms were covered. That would be okay, if I didn’t do my hands. He wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t like he was looking for it.

“And how’s that working out for you?” I asked at Aftran’s prompting.

“Quite well, actually. These kids are in a much better position than they would be without us.”

“They’d be free without – ”

“No, they wouldn’t. Someone else would be sitting in this seat if I wasn’t.”

“Ah, that’s how it works, isn’t it? ‘It’s okay for me to be evil, because if I didn’t do it, someone else would’. If everyone just ditched that thought – ”

“But everyone _won’t_. I don’t have time for pretty ideals. The _fact_ is that I am doing everything I can for my people. Koret is doing everything he can for his. In a perfect world, none of this would be happening, but this isn’t a perfect world, and it doesn’t have room for perfect ethics.”

“Well. It’s over now.” My arms lengthened, very slightly, and suddenly, it was there – my capacity for thought-speak. <Guys, if anyone’s still at school, I need help! I’m in Doctor Johnson’s office. Don’t cause a scene, but if anyone can get in the air or something, I’m going to try to get him outside and I might need backup.> Then I started demorphing again as quickly as possible.

“No, it isn’t,” Johnsons said. Or possibly Koret. “We can’t come with you, Cassie.”

“I won’t hurt either of you if you cooperate.”

“If we go with you, do you think this is going to stop? Do you think the yeerks are just going to be like, ‘oh, well I guess we don’t have that counsellor any more’? Another controller will take my place, and they’ll care a whole lot less.”

“You know I can’t let you go. You know I can’t let you go to the Empire and report me, and you know I can’t trust that you won’t. Please, don’t make this hard. I can kill you before you raise an alarm. Don’t make me prove it.”

He shook his head. “You’re brave, but – ”

<Believe her words, human.>

We both jumped. I recognised Marco’s mental voice, but only because I’d heard it so often – it was low, neutral, serious. Not a perfect imitation of an andalite, but not too bad.

Johnson’s face twisted into a mask of disgust. “You’re working with andalites!”

“I won’t let them hurt you, either, if you come quietly. I swear. And if you try to hurt me – ”

“I’d never do that, Cassie. You’re one of my kids.” He stood up. He pulled his hands out of mine, and this time, I let him. “Well then. Where to now?”

“We’re going to leave the school,” I said, trying not to show how nervous I was. So very many things could go wrong here. “If you raise any kind of an alarm, my friends...”

“Yes, yes, we get the picture.”

“Right. We’re going to get into your car and drive… somewhere.”

He raised a brow. “Mysterious.”

“You’re perfectly safe.”

“Hmm. I’m sure.”

Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where to take him. I had a Pool for Koret, in the Kings’ basement. But I couldn’t bring Doctor Johnson to their front door. I couldn’t bring him down the secret elevator into the chee park. I couldn’t do anything that might compromise the secrecy of the chee.

I felt something crawl up my leg, and resisted the urge to crush it. It was bigger than an insect. Lizard, maybe?

<So it there a plan here?> Jake asked. <Or...>

I couldn’t reply. I stood up, and followed Doctor Johnson out of the room. Down the hall. Out of the building.

All he had to do was shout. Nobody around us were in a big, dangerous morph, and I couldn’t attack him in the now-deserted corridor. If he realised he could just shout…

But the fear of andalites was strong. The yeerks had dealt with us showing up out of nowhere and wreaking havoc on multiple occasions. He didn’t run. He walked out into the parking lot, where a few cars still sat, and got into his. I got into the passenger seat.

We drove.

“Where to?” he asked.

Where to? Where was safe? I couldn’t bring him down to the Pool, meaning I had to convince Koret, somehow, to leave his host’s head early…

<You can do this,> Aftran assured me.

I nodded. “Train station.”

We drove. The journey was silent and tense. Jake the lizard relocated to my sleeve, where he could see everything. <We have Rachel and Marco,> he said. <I didn’t have time to get anyone else.>

We pulled into the train station.

“There’s a cafe next to the ticket counter,” I said. “We’re going to go there and you’re going to ask for an empty to-go cup. If they won’t give you one, buy the simplest, most room-temperature drink on their menu. Then we’re going to the ticket counter, and you’re going to buy a ticket.” I told him the town he was heading to. Rachel’s father’s town. “Then we’re going to the bathroom and you, Koret, will leave Doctor Johnson, who will get on that train equipped with a few code phrases for the person on the other end.”

He didn’t reply, but he followed my instructions. While he was getting his cup, Jake slipped out of my sleeve and found somewhere to demorph.

We had half an hour before the train.

<Marco’s arranging things on the other end,> Rachel reported. <We warned Dad that this guy isn’t completely trustworthy, so he’s sending a third party to the station and then we’ll switch all the codes. There’s not very much this guy can betray. Except you.>

Johnson bought his ticket. Then, together, we headed for the men’s bathroom.

“You have the cup?”

He handed it to me.

“Okay, Koret.”

Johnson hesitated, and it was only then that I saw the tears in his eyes, noticed his deep, steady breathing.

He was crying.

Or trying not to, at least. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and nodded. “Okay.”

A few seconds later, the yeerk started to emerge. Johnson lifted a hand to his ear to catch him. I filled the takeaway cup with water, trying to keep it as close to room temperature as possible.

“Okay, give him here,” I said.

Johnson hesitated, his fingers curling protectively around the yeerk.

“Please don’t make this difficult, Doctor Johnson.”

He handed me the yeerk. I dropped him gently into the water, then secured the lid back on the cup.

“What are you going to do with him?” Johnson asked.

“Take him to our Pool,” I said. “He won’t like this part of the journey, but he’s perfectly safe.”

He blinked in surprise. “You have a Pool?”

“Of course. How was this going to work if we didn’t? Did you think we were going to smuggle him back into the big Yeerk Pool or something?”

“To be honest, we were both kind of expecting you to kill him.”

“I told you I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to.”

“I know. I just...”

“Why did he come with me if he thought he was going to his death?”

He shrugged. “You would have killed him whether he was inside me or not. This way, at least one of us would survive.”

“He came here to save you.”

“Well, he didn’t think he could save himself.”

I looked at the cup in my hand. “You two are friends, aren’t you?”

“Friends? Of course not. You can’t make friends with a yeerk, no matter what your voluntary movement friends thing. We were just, well...”

“Compatible.”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “Well, if it helps, both of you are now a lot more likely to survive this war than I am. Go catch your train.”

He shook his head. “Cassie, I can’t just – ”

“Doctor Johnson. I mean this in the best possible way, but your presence in this town is now a major threat to me, the Voluntary Movement, and now that you know I’m working with them, the andalite bandits as well. If you are ever seen in this town again, appropriate and permanent safety measures will be taken.”

He swallowed. “My family.”

“Controllers?”

“Yes.”

“We need a little bit of time. But they can join you… probably within the month.”

“You swear it? You’re not just making this up so I’ll get on that train?”

“If I wasn’t lying about Koret, why would I lie about this? If it’ll keep you out of this town, we can rescue a woman and a child.”

He nodded. “Thank you. I still think there’s more I can do here, but if this is how it has to be, then – ”

“If my friends all do their jobs right, you won’t have to do anything more here. Now get on that train or I’ll have to kill you.”

He nodded. He headed for the train. I contemplated the cup in my hands.

<Aftran? Did we do the right thing? I don’t know what we stumbled into here, but… but the way we broke it up…>

<He’s free. And so, in a way, is Koret. And those kids they were planning to get infested.>

<No, they’re not. They wanted to work together. Those kids will get a new counsellor. This is supposed to be good, right? We protected ourselves, we’re freeing people, and we didn’t even have to starve anyone. So why does it feel like we might have just made things a lot worse?>

<I have faith in you, Cassie. You’re making a difference. Just keep doing what you’re doing.>

<I wish I knew what the hell I was doing.>


	10. Chapter 10

“What the hell were you doing?!” Marco snapped. “You confronted a known controller, on school grounds, _alone_?!”

Except for Ax and David (on Aria duty), we Animorphs were all in the barn, and my parents were out, which was why Marco was able to shout.

“I wasn’t alone,” I said reasonably. “You, Rachel and Jake were there.”

“Yeah, because we got a panicked message just as we were getting on the bus! If you hadn’t been able to morph enough to thought-speak, or if it had been just a few minutes later...”

“I had Aftran with me,” I said reasonably.

“Oh, yes, a literal slug, that would’ve been _so helpful in a crisis_.”

“Is she still with you?” Jake asked.

“No, she’s helping Koret adjust. I’d tell you if she was here.”

“Why did you even bring her to school?” Rachel asked, frowning.

“It’s not good for her to be in that Pool alone all the time. The chee yeerks are… hardly good company.”

“Well, she’s got Koret now. So problem solved, right?” Rachel shrugged. “It all worked out.”

<And now we just have to save this man’s wife and kid,> Tobias added, <which, if the yeerks are willing to surrender instead of starving, will be way faster than normal. This Pool thing could go somewhere. This has potential.>

“Don’t let Ax hear you talk like that,” Rachel said. “He still hasn’t forgiven Aftran for infesting him when he needed surgery.”

“That was my idea,” I said. “Not hers. The other controllers can wait – how’s it going with Aria?”

<She’s not been near any known Yeerk Pool entrances, and hasn’t been out of sight for more than about ten minutes,> Tobias said. <So far, so good.>

“It’s been over three days,” Rachel said quietly.

<It has.>

“So…”

<So tomorrow, I go to this will thing. See what it’s about.>

“Maybe Tobias is a billionaire now,” Marco said. “Maybe we can all ditch this was and retire to the luxurious mansion he’s inherited.”

<Birds only in my mansion,> Tobias said. <No monkeys.>

“My morph is a _gorilla_ ,” Marco insisted.

<Wasn’t talking about your morph.>

“Anyway,” Marco said after an obligatory eyeroll, “we need to prepare for this reading.”

<What’s to prepare? I go, I listen, I leave. If it takes more than two hours, I’ll find a bathroom.>

“Do you still think this might be a trap?” Rachel asked Marco. “I just don’t see how the yeerks can have anything to do with this, especially if Aria’s not with them.”

“Who said anything about yeerks?” Marco asked. “We need an exit plan for child services.”

“What?”

Marco sighed. “None of you have ever dealt with child services, have you?”

“When did _you_ deal with – ”

“Look. What do you think happens when a street kid who’s been missing for a good year and a half makes an appointment to walk into a government building? That building is filled with police and social workers, is what, ready to take him to a nice, secure home. With Aria, if things work out. With someone else, if they don’t.”

“Filled with police?” Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well. Not filled. There’ll be some cops. And even with morphing powers, Tobias, it might not be easy to give them the slip.”

<I’ll just go to the bathroom and morph fly.>

“And if they stand outside the stall and wait for you? You just gonna let them stand there while you morph, then eventually force their way in to an empty stall with some clothes in it? You don’t think that might look suspicious? We know a lot of the cops are controllers.”

<… Fine. But we shouldn’t bring everyone. The more people, the higher chance a controller is going to think ‘andalite bandits’ if anything does happen.>

“We aren’t subtle people,” Marco agreed.

Jake’s eyes skimmed the group. “Cassie, Rachel; are you two free at the time?”

“Of course,” Rachel said.

I nodded.

“Okay. Us three will back Tobias up.”

Good choices, I thought. Ax would have the hardest time blending in, and Marco and David had their own Dad stuff to deal with right then.

“Whelp,” Marco said, “if we’re done here, I have to go listen to two grown adults deliberate over practically identical types of ribbon. Have a fun day, everyone.” With a cheery wave, Marco left. Not long after, so did everyone else. Everyone but Jake.

“So everything’s wrapped up with this counsellor controller, then?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeerk is in the chee Pool, human is with Rachel’s dad. It kind of sucks, really. It’d be great to have an actual counsellor on-hand who we could be honest with, and who could help us.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t suggest that to the group.”

“Honestly, I don’t think we could have trusted him. Out of town, sure, but here? No.”

He nodded. “I see.”

I cocked my head. “Jake, is something wrong?”

“Is something _wrong_? Cassie, I’m… look. Ever since that whole time travel thing you guys did, when I died or whatever, Marco and Ax have been treating me like I’m made of glass and it’s annoying as hell. So I’m trying not to do that to you. But… Jesus, Cassie. What the hell was _that_?”

“It’s not like I planned that stuff today.”

“That’s blatantly obvious! It could have been all over for you! He could have raised the alarm and dragged you down to the Pool, and even if you got away without giving yourself away as an Animorph, they’d have come for you and your parents! Marco’s right – if we hadn’t been there – ”

“Then I would have figured it out. I could have pretended to be an andalite in thought-speak, hiding out in the room.”

“And if you hadn’t managed to secretly morph enough to thought-speak?”

“Then I would have killed him if I had to! Jake, I didn’t go into that office intending for any of this to happen. He caught me! I had to improvise!”

“I know, I know. I just… someday, we’re not going to be lucky any more. You know?”

I shook my head. “Of all the dangerous things we’ve faced, today was nothing.”

“I know!” He grabbed my elbows, pulled me close. “Isn’t that crazy? The things we face, the things we do...”

“We do what we have to,” I whispered, as he pulled me close.

Then he stopped.

“She’s not with you right now, you said? Aftran, I mean?”

“That’s right.”

“But she’ll see this later.”

I frowned. “Do you have a message for her or – ?”

“No, I… can you… hide things from her?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“She doesn’t go digging through my memories. She doesn’t see what I’ve done when she isn’t with me. But, well, she can’t help but read my thoughts. If I think of something when she’s with me, then...” I shrugged.

He nodded, and let me go.

“Jake…?”

“Sorry, just… thinking. Anyway, we have work to do.”

I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Why does something always have to be wrong?” He tried a smile. “Come on, let’s clean this barn and figure out how we’re going to guard Tobias.”

“Jake. Are you… jealous?”

He blinked. The surprise on his face was genuine. “Jealous?”

“Of Aftran.”

“What? Ha. No. No, I’m not jealous of a yeerk.”

“You hate yeerks.”

“Of course I hate yeerks. We all hate yeerks. That’s why we’re fighting this war.”

“I thought we were fighting this war to protect human freedom.”

“From them! From what they’re doing to us!”

I crossed my arms. “And that’s why you hate Aftran.”

“I don’t hate Aftran.”

“You clearly do.”

“Aftran has had multiple opportunities to turn us all in to the yeerk Empire and she hasn’t. She’s put her life on the line for us at least twice. It would be completely illogical not to trust her.”

“I didn’t say anything about trusting her. I said you hate her.”

“She got you trapped as a bug, Cassie! It was like Tobias, but a billion times worse! You were a freaking caterpillar, and we _lost_ you! You hanging out with her is like… it’s like me buddying up with Crayak after – ”

“I’m sorry, did you seriously just compare the person who sacrificed herself twice for peace and freedom to a freaking genocide god?”

“That’s not what I meant, Cassie. I just meant in terms of him killing me, and all that.”

“So it’d be more like you making friends with howlers, then. She didn’t intend for me to get trapped.”

“But you did.”

“I was trying to starve her to death at the time.”

“But you didn’t do it.”

“I did kill her brother. You know, while we’re comparing crimes.”

“And has she forgiven you for that, like it seems you’ve forgiven her?”

“Jake, I’m not asking you to understand our friendship. I get it, okay? You see Tom every day, you see the bad that yeerks can do. But humans do bad, too – we have our own slavery, our own torture, our own genocides. Hell, the best intentioned people in the world built that evil Empire that… oh, right, you don’t remember the Time Matrix stuff. What happened between Aftran and me is between us. You don’t have to understand.”

“You, and Aftran… and her little human slave.”

“What?”

“The girl. From the forest. And her hosts before that. And anyone else hurt by the things she did for the Empire. Her crimes don’t begin and end with you, Cassie. And it’s not just between you guys, because if you hadn’t happened to get trapped as a caterpillar, if it had been a worm or something… we’d be down an Animorph. Your parents would be down a daughter.”

“So you think it’s fair to blame her for the ramifications of everything she’s done as a result of the yeerk Empire being here?”

“Cassie, it’s not a matter of – ”

“And the things we’ve done? The people we’ve killed, the families we’ve broken up? Are we to blame for those?”

“I blame us every day,” Jake said, looking away.

“No, you don’t. You blame yourself, whether things are your fault or not. But look me in the eye and tell me honestly that you blame me for killing Aftran’s brother. That you would have blamed me if I’d had to kill Doctor Johnson today. Go on.”

“That’s not the same thing at all!”

“Yes, it is. You just don’t see it, because you hate yeerks.”

“The yeerk that was in my head. Temrash. Remember him?”

“Of course I do.”

“He was Tom’s old yeerk.”

“… what?”

“He’d been in Tom’s head. He showed me some of his old memories, of him and Tom.” Jake swallowed. “He was breaking my brother apart from the inside out. He enjoyed doing it. It’s what they do. I can accept that Aftran won’t turn us over to Visser Three, but she’s still a yeerk with her own yeerk agenda. I know you’re friends, but… I don’t like what she does to you.”

“What do you mean, what she does to me? Ever since we parted ways in the forest, the only thing she’s done to me is be extremely helpful.”

“She messes with your mind.”

“She does not!”

“Of course she does! It’s what they do! She gets in there and reads your thoughts and… and thinks things to confuse you that…”

“Jake, what did Temrash do to you?”

“Nothing! This isn’t about him.”

“It clearly is, because if Aftran mentally speaking to me is ‘messing with my mind’ then so is thought-speak, and you’ve never been worried about that.”

“I just… I don’t like the person she turns you into.”

“What do you mean, the person she turns me into? I’m still the same person. Besides, all of my best accomplishments are when I have Aftran to back me up.”

“No, they’re not! Your best accomplishments are when you’re with us, a part of the Animorphs, backing each other up! Being with Aftran just makes you unbelievably reckless.”

“How? Aftran isn’t reckless.”

Jake blinked at me. “Cassie, literally every single thing she’s done for as long as you’ve known her has been absurdly reckless.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“Like today,” Jake continued. “With the counsellor. That was incredibly dangerous.”

“Like I said, I had no choice. That wasn’t recklessness; he caught me snooping. I had to act.”

“And would you have been snooping in his files if Aftran hadn’t been with you?”

I shrugged. But I knew I wasn’t fooling him.

“If I hadn’t, then Doctor Johnson wouldn’t be free,” I said.

“Yes, he would, because we could have made an actual plan and freed him with the whole group backing you up. This is the sort of thing I’d expect from Rachel.”

“Oh,” I said viciously, knowing I was being unfair, “that’s what’s bothering you.”

“What?”

“This isn’t about Aftran. You just don’t like it when your little pawns behave unpredictably. It’s easy when you have the smart one, and the brave one, and the empath, all lined up to slot into the right roles. But it’s the end of the world if anyone does anything that you haven’t preordained.”

I was being cruel, I knew. This had ceased to be an actual, productive discussion. But Jake didn’t respond with something equally mean, so I pushed harder.

“If my relationship with Aftran bothers you so much, oh great leader of the Animorphs, why don’t you just order me not to see her again?” I asked. “It’s a military matter, right? A group safety matter. So just tell your little soldier what she’s going to do and end the issue.”

Still, Jake didn’t snap back. He just looked at me dispassionately for several seconds.

Finally, he said, “If I thought for one second that you’d actually obey me, Cassie, I’d order exactly that.”

Then he turned on his heel and started to stalk away.

“I guess it’s going to be hard for me to hide what you think of her when I see her next week!” I called after him.

He didn’t turn around. He just called back, “Show her! Show her the whole thing! I want to be absolutely clear about where we all stand!”

Then the barn door slammed shut behind him, and he was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

I waited until Jake was well and truly gone before going back into the house. I didn’t want to run into him again. How dare he talk about Aftran like that? Yes, Jake had had bad experiences with yeerks and that was awful, but they weren’t Aftran’s fault. Or my fault, for that matter.

Dad was at the kitchen table, filling out some kind of form. He glanced up as I came in.

“Oh, hi, honey. How’d your environment meeting go?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Is everything okay? You’re looking at me strangely.”

I was. I was looking at him strangely because I wasn’t seeing him. I was remembering another man who looked almost exactly identical, another Walter Williams calmly outlining the evils of eugenics to his daughter. In a world where everything had been against them, my parents had somehow still held onto their morals and been good people. Me? I’d caved. I’d been terrible.

The other Cassie had been terrible, I mean. The other Cassie wasn’t me.

I brushed past my dad and headed upstairs, mumbling something about homework, so he wouldn’t see me cry. My parents were so much better people than I was. They should have been Animorphs. They would have been amazing Animorphs. They would’ve known how to balance Aftran and Jake, they would’ve known how to help David, they would’ve known how to get Marco to accept his own feelings without feeling like they were butting in on something that wasn’t their business. I was… well. A product of my environment. And very easily swayed, apparently.

I wasn’t all that bothered by the other Cassie’s evil. Like I’d explained to Jake at Delaware, this sort of thing was to be expected. If everyone was the same in both worlds, that would mean that people were just born good or evil, hero or villain, and it would be terrible if that were true. People being mutable by their environment meant that rehabilitation was possible, that peace was possible, that a better world was possible.

Her being evil, her believing all of those disgusting things, didn’t bother me. What bothered me was that she had been a rationalist, like me, or at least she had thought she was. Yet her conclusions on most important questions had been dead wrong.

But she had been every bit as confident in them as I was in mine.

So I did have the same problem as Jake had, I supposed. The only difference was that he’d framed it as a moral question and for me it was an intellectual one; they came out meaning the same thing. How sure of my conclusions about the world could I really be, if my own certainty meant nothing, and if available information was based so heavily on things outside my control? The other Cassie had believed so many horrible, disgusting, and just plain false things; things I’d immediately dismissed because they were mostly stuff I’d found the flaws in when I was five. But I had memories of me when I was five; I only had two days’ worth of memories for the other Cassie. What if our places had been switched; if she’d gotten a couple of days’ worth of my memories? Would she have been able to dismiss my positions as flawed nonsense just as quickly?

It was hard to be sure, but from the memories I did have, from the knowledge of her certainty… she probably could. So what put my conclusions above hers, aside from happenstance?

The conclusions themselves I had no doubt in. “Slavery and forced sterilisation to support the enforced eugenics program of a warmaking fascist government are bad” was, I felt, a pretty safe moral bet. The position wasn’t in doubt, but the methods I’d used to reach it were. How much of my reason, my logical debate, my clear-sightedness, was actually rational? How much of it was, like the other Cassie’s, a bunch of ingrained societal norms masquerading as rationality under trenchcoats of ten-dollar words?

This mattered. This was important. Because while ‘slavery is bad’ and ‘we shouldn’t invade Brazil for their land’ were pretty safe positions to hold, other moral questions could be a lot murkier. Was Jake right – should I avoid hanging out with Aftran? Was Marco right – should I pretend nothing was wrong with his family? Was David right – should we have used the Time Matrix to save his father, to save the victims of the holocaust, to save anyone and everyone we could rather than blindly trust the advice of a being who had once tried to use us as a tool for genocide?

These were harder questions. These were important questions. I had only my mind to help me solve them, and I couldn’t really trust it. It was the best thing I had and I couldn’t really trust it.

Jake didn’t have to remember his conundrum; a bit of lead and some time travel had seen to that. But I remembered. The rest of us all remembered.

I should be happy with such information. I should acknowledge that this would be true whether I knew it or not, and be grateful that I had the ability to experience a deeply flawed point of view first-hand, so that all of this would be obvious to me. So that, with this experience making the dangers of self-delusion so much more real to me, I could take it into account, be a better thinker, a better rationalist, a better moralist, a better person.

All information was good information, right? Having the best, most accurate information helped one to make the best decisions, so we should always want as much accurate information as possible, right?

I‘d always lived on quicksand, I’d always known intellectually that I lived on quicksand. I should be happy to have the opportunity to really bring home the fact that I lived on quicksand.

I wasn’t.


	12. Chapter 12

“Cassie! Jake’s on the phone!”

I forced my eyes open. It was 6am on a Saturday, which was way too early for Jake to be up. Maybe he wanted to apologise for being a jerk and smooth everything over before our mission with Tobias that afternoon.

I pulled myself out of bed, trudged heavily down the stairs and took the phone from my mom. “Jake? What’s up?”

“Hi, Cassie. You know that thing I was going to take you to today? Well, I hate to do this, but can you find someone else to take you? There’s been a family emergency.”

Family emergency? Tom?!

“What happened?” I asked.

“It’s my cousin Saddler. He’s been in a car accident, he’s in intensive care. My family’s going down to see him. Rachel’s is going too.”

“Oh. Man. I’m so sorry to hear that. Anything we can do to help you guys out?”

“No, no. It’s just going to be a bit busy today.”

“I’ll find someone else, don’t worry about it. I wish your cousin the best.”

“Thanks.”

He hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand for a few seconds, then rested it carefully back in its cradle.

“Mom, I’m gonna get through my chores and get going, okay? I want to get out early.”

She blinked in surprise. “It’s six in the morning, sweetheart. I thought you had a lunch date today?”

“It’s not a date,” I mumbled, blushing furiously, although I wasn’t sure why. Jake and I had said to each other that we were… well, not said to each other, but unambiguously implied that we were, you know. Jake was my boyfriend, at any rate, whatever words had or hadn’t actually been used. A date would be a perfectly unsuspicious excuse.

“Anyway,” I said, “there’s some stuff I have to get done this morning. So I might not be around much until, you know, later.”

“Have fun, honey.” Mom kissed my forehead. My breath caught in my throat. What had I done to deserve these people? Everyone else had family who were dead or gone or controllers, and my parents had been perfect even in another universe. Somehow, even in that evil universe, this woman – no, not this woman, because that Cassie hadn’t been me, so her mother was another mother. Different people. Not me, so not Mom.

Anyway. My parents were pretty great.

I’d need to get Marco, David and/or Ax onto Tobias’ Guard Detail with me, but first, I decided to check in with Tobias and break the news to him. He wasn’t hard to find. Tobias’ main activities involve tracking yeerks and gathering data, or hunting and defending his meadow. And somehow, I didn’t think he’d be getting any yeerk-tracking done on the day his father’s will was being read.

I flew to his meadow, announcing myself in thought-speak before arriving; ospreys didn’t usually fight red-tails for food or territory, but it was still kind of rude to enter his meadow without making it clear I was an Animorph first, and potentially worry him over nothing. Tobias was, as I’d suspected, awake with the sun and scanning for early morning prey.

<Hi, Cassie. What’s up?>

<Change of plans,> I said. <Jake and Rachel have a bit of a family emergency – not yeerk-related. They can’t come with us today.>

<So we need to see who else isn’t busy?>

<Pretty much. Any preference?>

Tobias preened a wing. <I don’t think it matters, one way or another. It’s just a will thing, Whoever’s free.>

His tone was casual. Too casual for Tobias. Was it just me, or was he tugging at his feathers with more force than necessary?

<Tobias,> I said, <is this something you’d rather do alone?>

<I can’t,> he said. <Marco’s right, there’s gonna be child services and stuff there. I can’t afford to end up with them, whether they’re yeerks or not.>

<Well, if you want, I can just go and back you up. You probably won’t need more than one Animorph. Maybe I just didn’t get around to telling the others about Jake and Rachel. Mistakes happen.>

He paused in his preening to look at me. <Jake wouldn’t be happy about just us going in,> he said. <He’d say it’s too dangerous.>

<Yeah, well, Jake’s done solo and two-person missions just like everyone else, so he can shut up. If he’s mad, we just blame me. He’s already upset with me anyway.>

<With you? Why?>

<It’s not important. A Tobias-and-Cassie mission; I’m up for it if you are.>

<Yeah. Yeah, okay.> Tobias relaxed. I suspected he’d relax more if he was going by himself, but he was right – it was prudent to have _some_ backup.

I went home to do my chores, and hours later, I was a wolf spider in the sleeve of an awkward teenage boy sitting stiffly on the bus. Tobias’ outfit had been chosen by Rachel, so the blazer he was wearing was probably amazingly fashionable, but it didn’t have particularly wide sleeves. Still, I fit. Just.

It took a little while for Tobias to find DeGroot’s office from ground level, but we’d left plenty of time. It was half a block from a McDonalds’, where we refreshed our morphs before continuing.

Once at the office building, I couldn’t see anything without risking being seen. I sat deep in Tobias’ sleeve while he warned me, <Two cops outside the building. Undercover.>

<If they’re undercover, how do you know they’re police?> I asked.

<I lived with my uncle on-and-off for years. I know what cops look like.> We entered the building. I heard Tobias have a brief exchange with the receptionist, then head into an elevator. He tensed as he stepped into it, and I couldn’t blame him – as well-intentioned as everyone was towards him, he was technically walking into a trap. The elevator, the small, confined room with a single exit being necessary to escape… expected, but not ideal.

Also, Tobias’ hawk instincts were a fairly ingrained part of him by now, so stepping into a confined box was probably stressful at the best of times.

<He’s on the sixth floor,> Tobias said.

<The most fatal floor to fall from if you’re a cat,> I remarked.

<That’s a weird thing to know, but thanks for the random fatality fact, Cassie. Things like that really help in any situation.>

<Sorry.>

The elevator stopped. Tobias stepped out, and walked down a short passage. <This door is DeGroot’s. Nobody is watching us. I’m going to put my hand on the doorhandle.>

I got ready. Tobias grabbed the handle, and I shot out of his sleeve, onto the door and down to the floor. By the time he’d opened it and walked in, I was halfway up a bookcase behind DeGroot.

DeGroot was a balding man in a faded suit and with a pair of unusually small spectacles. Behind him stood a police officer, this one in uniform. She wore sunglasses, so it was hard to tell what she was looking at. She didn’t seem to react to Tobias’ blank stare.

In one of two comfortable-looking chairs sitting in front of DeGroot’s desk sat Aria. She leapt up, smiling brightly, and held a hand out to Tobias.

“You must be Tobias,” she said warmly. “It’s so good to meet you. I’m Aria.”

Tobias stared at her hand for a few seconds, then stiffly gripped it in his own for a brief handshake. Then he seemed to remember what facial expressions were, and managed a very insincere smile. Tobias’ lack of practice with his human morph always made him seem a bit weird, but at least he wasn’t Ax, who would be grabbing handfuls of candy from the little bowl sitting on DeGroot’s desk by now.

Aria sat back down. Tobias sat in the other chair. I nestled between a couple of heavy law books, and started to think of just how I could help when Tobias needed to leave. I’d put a lot of thought into my morph; the perfect blend of good senses, small size and being expected inside an office building, with the bonus of being one of the few small creatures that could easily upset someone. I could distract the police officer and let Tobias make a run for it… then he’d just need to find somewhere to demorph; he could fly out a window and the police outside the building wouldn’t be a problem… did the building have security cameras…?

DeGroot cleared his throat.

“Right,” he said. “Today, we are here for two things – the reading of the will of Alan Fangor, and to discuss the living arrangements of Tobias Fangor and possible transfer of guardianship to Aria Smith, his father’s cousin.” He looked between the two. “So we all understand?”

“Yes, yes,” Aria said, waving a hand slightly impatiently. Tobias just nodded, his face blank.

“Right.” DeGroot shuffled some papers in front of him. “Now then. Unfortunately, Mr Fangor’s will contains no title or asset dedications. It contains only a letter, which I am charged to read to you, Tobias, before burning it.”

“Do these other people need to be here, then?” Tobias asked.

DeGroot frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“The cop. And… look, Aria, I’m sure you’re great, but if this letter is supposed to be burned after one reading then it’s probably got some pretty secret stuff, right? Like, this is stuff he didn’t want anyone else hearing. Except his lawyer, apparently. So are they supposed to be here? Or are you only supposed to read it to me?”

DeGroot exchanged an awkward glance with Aria. She smiled.

“Tobias,” she said gently, “I knew your father quite well before we grew apart. I’m sure he wasn’t a criminal, or whatever else you might be worried about. Nothing in the letter could be dangerous. There’s no reason to – ”

“Pretty sure people don’t burn non-dangerous letters,” Tobias said, crossing his arms. “Legally speaking, Mr DeGroot, who needs to be here for this?”

DeGroot cleared his throat again. “Legally speaking, you are allowed to nominate a representative or guardian to advise you, so if you nominate Aria then – ”

“And if I choose not to? It’s just us, right?”

“… Yes.”

Tobias nodded. “Okay, then.”

Reluctantly, Aria and the police officer left the room. Just like that, Tobias was alone in the room with DeGroot. If he tried to leave, he’d still have to go past the others, but it’d be a whole lot easier. Why was I here, again? Tobias seemed perfectly capable of handling things on his own.

As soon as the door closed, DeGroot opened his mouth again. Tobias raised a finger. This was the most assertive I’d ever seen Tobias, and the lawyer must have been surprised, too, because he simply shut his mouth again, looking baffled. A few seconds later, Tobias got up, opened the door, and peeked out.

“Just making sure they’re not listening at the door,” he explained, before sitting down again. “Okay. Sorry about all that.”

“Are we ready now?” DeGroot asked, sounding impatient.

Tobias nodded.

“Right then. Here we go.” He picked up a very old, somewhat work-looking envelope from among the papers on his desk, took a letter opener, and sliced the top open. He pulled out a single sheet of paper. From my vantage point, with spider eyes, I couldn’t make out the words. He pushed his tiny glasses up his nose, and began to read.

“Dear Tobias,” he began. “I am your father. And I never knew you. I hope that your mother found someone else to love, someone who would love her and you the way that you deserved. I doubt that she would remember me. My presence on planet Earth has been erased, in many ways. I suppose that in the end, the only thing I really gave her was you.”

DeGroot glanced at Tobias. DeGroot himself looked slightly bored; he’d probably read a hundred of these letters in his career. Tobias, as usual, looked blank; the unreadable face of someone who has forgotten how to make facial expressions. I fancied that he looked a bit like a hawk, watching the twitching of grass that indicated prey. No room for emotion or wild speculation; it was time to watch. Watch and wait. Not time to react, yet.

“I am being given this opportunity to communicate by the very being who has erased my life on Earth. It was a concession I insisted upon. Tobias, my son. My unknown, unseen, unmet son. There are so many things I wish to share with you, to show you, to explain to you; things that might help any of this make sense to you, for I fear it won’t. The truth is, Tobias, that I am not like you. I am not like your mother. I walked among your people, but I was not one of them. I was never a human. I am an alien.”

Again, DeGroot glanced at Tobias for a reaction. After a few seconds, Tobias seemed to realise that he wasn’t emoting, and rolled his eyes. “Oh, man,” he groaned.

DeGroot frowned a little and looked back down at the letter. I clamped down on my own surprise, my own speculation – _facts first, then speculation_ ; _also, time to freak out later_ – and kept watching.

<Tobias,> I said, <DeGroot’s not surprised by this alien thing. He wanted to see if you were surprised. He’s monitoring your reactions, but he’s not surprised himself!>

<He’s read it before,> Tobias concluded.

<And now he’s watching you very carefully.>

“I was in a terrible war. I did terrible things. I had to, I suppose; that is how war is. But I could not handle it, even for a good cause; I grew tired of the killing, the bullying, the politics. I ran away. With your mother. I took the name Alan Fangor.”

DeGroot had definitely read this letter before. He was barely glancing at the page, his eyes solidly on Tobias’ face.

“I took the name Alan Fangor. But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.”

DeGroot studied Tobias’ face. So did I. Inside, Tobias must be a hundred times as shocked as I was – I was merely a witness, while this was his _life_ – but his face was as blank as ever. Not the deliberate blank of somebody trying to give nothing away and therefore giving everything away; the patient blank of a face with no expression to project. The hawk did not wear its emotions on its face. The hawk watched the prey dash across the meadow, and did not react until it was ready to strike.

Tobias was silent for several seconds, and I knew he must be struggling internally, forcing his tone calm, before speaking. “Is that it?”

“Uh. No.” DeGroot looked to the letter again. “But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,” he repeated, glancing up again as if hoping he might get a better reaction a second time around. As for myself, I was pushing aside the temptation to try to puzzle out how any of this was possible, because my job was to get Tobias out alive. DeGroot was obviously a controller, and Tobias was Elfangor’s son, and he was watching for reactions meaning he must have suspected that the name would mean something to Tobias – so they thought he was an ‘andalite bandit’? But then… wouldn’t they expect Tobias to know who his father was, and not come, and not be surprised? Either way, DeGroot clearly knew the name. DeGroot was a controller, so Aria was probably a controller – she couldn’t actually be Elfangor’s cousin, so there was no other explanation; the controllers wanted Elfangor’s son under their supervision. As a hostage, maybe, or to see if he knew anything, or even just as a trophy capture for Visser Three’s pride. Either way, Tobias was walking out of here a controller. Unless I could save him. I knew, if he absolutely had to, he’d morph to escape – better that than getting infested and giving up all his secrets. But morphing would put the Animorphs at risk too; less risk than capture, but if the yeerks knew that two of us were human, it wasn’t too much of a stretch…

DeGroot was reading.

“I want you to know that my disappearance from your life was not by choice. I wanted nothing more than to remain on Earth, loving your mother and loving you. I cannot honestly say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you, but I wanted to love you, more than anything. But I had a duty larger than myself; something I hope that you will never have to understand. Something that I fear that you will. For the freedom that unites us, my beloved son, we rise to the stars.” DeGroot glanced at Tobias again. Tobias’ only indication of expression was that he’d briefly closed his eyes.

“It’s signed ‘War-Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,” DeGroot finished.

Tobias opened his eyes again. “But no money?” he asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Ha. Figures. My dad was completely nutso _and_ broke; that explains a lot.” He stood up and made his way to the door. On the way, he stumbled and caught himself on the bookshelf; I dashed into his sleeve again.

He grabbed the doorhandle, and DeGroot stood up. “We still haven’t settled the matter of your guardianship,” he said quickly.

“I have guardians.”

“In theory, yes, but when I went to locate you it turned out that you hadn’t been living with either of them for some time. It seemed that each assumed you were with the other. Now, Aria – ”

“Can wait for me to get back from the bathroom before making her sales pitch,” Tobias said firmly. “Although now that there’s very definitely no money, I bet she’ll drop me like a hot potato, too. I don’t think the meeting is going to be too complicated.”

As Tobias strode down the hall at a speed just shy of actually hurrying, somebody fell into step beside him. I risked a peek; it was the police officer in shades.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Just going to the bathroom.”

“I’m headed that way myself.”

I tried to figure out an escape plan. The officer was female, so she wouldn’t follow Tobias into the bathroom, giving him the time and space to morph – but, as Marco had pointed out the day before, that would mean walking into a bathroom, vanishing, and leaving a pile of clothes behind. Given the Elfangor thing, that wasn’t a great choice.

Tobias’ steps didn’t falter. He kept heading down the hall as if he had nothing to worry about.

<Tobias, do you have a plan?> I asked.

<Oh, yeah.> He kept walking. Towards the toilets.

Past the toilets.

“Um,” the police officer called, “Tobias?” She reached out to grab his arm; he pulled away and broke into a jog.

He barrelled through the doors at the end of the hall.

The fire escape.

Tobias, in his scrawny twelve-year-old body, had no hope of outrunning a police officer. But he had one advantage that the police officer didn’t, which he used without hesitation; he took the leap most fatal to cats.

Well, no; he didn’t jump six stories straight down. That would be ridiculous. He leapt over the safety rail on the fire stairs to land on the platform one floor below. Then he did it again. And again.

He didn’t go to the ground floor. He slipped into the second-floor hall and leaned against the fire escape, listening to the officer’s steps as she thundered past to the ground floor. Then, in a slow, dragging gait that suggested he must have done quite a bit of damage to his legs and feet, he dragged himself to the first empty, unlocked room and slipped inside.

Then he sank down to the floor, breathing heavily.

<Are you okay?> I asked him, which was a stupid question.

He didn’t respond sarcastically, though. His eyes were pressed closed, his fists clenched.

<Tobias?>

<Mm?>

<Are you alright.>

<Hm. I guess.> He opened his eyes. <It’s a trick, right? The Elfangor thing?>

<I don’t… really see how, or why. I mean, yeah, this whole thing is clearly a trap to infest you, but if you think the letter is fake… well, I don’t see why they’d pull that. How could it help them?>

He nodded. <Aria’s a controller, right? She has to be.>

<I guess so. But we didn’t see her go anywhere near a Yeerk Pool entrance, and she wasn’t out of sight long enough to – >

<Clearview.>

<What?>

<Clearview. In that evil world. They didn’t have an on-site Yeerk Pool, right? They were in the middle of building their Kandrona. But they had controller residents, who weren’t allowed to leave the site. And they were keeping them alive somehow. If they found a way…>

<If they don’t need the Yeerk Pool every three days in this reality either, then this could be really, really bad.> I thought about it. <Maybe she’s been taking oatmeal?>

<Maybe. Cassie, we have to save her.>

<… What?>

<Aria. When I escape, Visser Three is going to kill her, to kill her yeerk. That’s what he’s like. Elfangor being my… writing that letter, and me escaping – they’re going to get her killed. Help me save her.>

<Of course. But, Tobias, you realise she can’t really be your – >

<I don’t care! She’s another person in danger because of all these yeerks, and because of me! I don’t know how to save DeGroot or any of those cops, but I haven’t seen Aria since we sent her out of the room, so she might have escaped, and we know where she lives. We might have time.>

<Okay, okay! How are we going to get out of here?>

<Oh, that. Easy. Hang on.>

Tobias demorphed. He remorphed. He got dressed. This time, though, he left off his blazer; since his pants and shoes were a nondescript black, his outfit wasn’t recognisable as the same one he’d walked in with. And he didn’t remorph into his normal body; there were dashes of Jake and Marco in his features. He chucked the blazer over the back of a chair and picked me up.

<You’re just going to leave it here?> I asked.

<Sure. A whole outfit left behind would be weird. But a single blazer? Happens all the time.> He gently stuck me under his collar, and we headed for the elevator.

And straight out of the building, right past the undercover police.

<Tobias,> I said, <you’re in charge of our escape plans from now on.>

<You don’t want that, I take all the fun out of being an Anim – > he stumbled, and grabbed a streetlight to steady himself.

<Tobias?>

<Ugh, Ax is right; human walking sucks. I’m gonna demorph in that dumpster.>

He headed for the dumpster. We demorphed. “We spend way too much time in dumpsters,” I remarked. “For superheroes and all.”

<’Tis a noble tradition,> he replied. <Superman has his phone booth, we have our dumpster. Now. Let’s come up with a plan to save my fake aunt from my father’s killer.>


	13. Chapter 13

Aria’s car was in a nearby parking garage. We morphed flies and hid inside, waiting to see if she’d even make it out of the building. She had to, right? Visser Three wouldn’t be physically in the building, ready to start executing underlings, right? He was a busy guy. He couldn’t oversee every plot in person.

<Have we started moving?> Tobias asked after a little while. We hadn’t.

<Are you okay?> I asked. <You’ve been kind of out of it. I get why, but...>

<I’m fine. It’s just a lot, you know? Kind of dizzy. But we can do this.>

<Dizzy? Are you sick? If we have to deal with yet another alien pathogen – >

<No, no. Just thinking.>

We were silent for a little bit.

<About that night in the construction site?> I ventured eventually.

<Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about how he…> Tobias trailed off. Then several seconds later, he said, <That sly bastard!>

<What? What’s wrong?>

<I know what this is! I’ve felt this before! It’s like when we’d see andalite writing, after getting that distress signal from Ax!>

< _Thalhu_? How?> I tried to remember the night we’d met Elfangor. <You think… you think Elfangor accidentally left something when he gave you all that yeerk information?>

<Accidentally, my butt! I started feeling dizzy when DeGroot was reading that letter. Ugh, this is awful timing. We’re on a mission here!>

<You think he intentionally put something in your mind that would trigger when something in that letter was read.> Maybe – Elfangor had given that information to Tobias, not to the rest of us. And he knew what was in the letter, if he wrote it. Meaning… meaning that the letter had to have been genuine. And Elfangor had to have known who Tobias was, that night. And…

<Tobias,> I said, barely believing my own words, <he came back for you.>

<What are you talking about?>

<He knew you, in the construction site. He must have, right? He gave this information to you! And set it up so… so you’d get it when you were fourteen, I guess.>

<Well, great of him to _say_ something,> Tobias grumbled.

<He had an _escafil_ device in his fighter,> I pressed. <Why? Andalites don’t share technology! He didn’t need it himself; andalites learn morphing long before going into battle! The only thing that device could do there was potentially get captured by yeerks, so why did he have one?>

<You’re saying he had the intent of creating Animorphs,> Tobias said. <There’s no other reason to bring one. Holy shit. So you’re saying he, what, got his ship shot to pieces on purpose and precision-crashed in front of us?>

<I don’t think so. He seemed kind of surprised and desperate about the whole thing. He probably intended to track you down under… calmer circumstances.>

Just then, we were interrupted by the car door opening. Aria got in, carefully settled her handbag on the passenger seat, and started the ignition with trembling fingers.

<Ready?> I asked Tobias.

<Ready.>

Aria left the car park, cursing softly. Then Tobias, in his best andalite impression, spoke up.

<You appear to be in some trouble, yeerk.>

Aria swore loudly, nearly mounted the curb and screeched to a halt. Behind us, several car horns honked angrily.

“So you’re here to kill me, then,” Aria said.

<If we wished you dead, you would be dead.>

“The boy is working with you. And those dumbasses let him get away. Fuck.”

<Working with us? Lineage aside, he is a mere human. We watch over him, to honor our War-Prince. But he is not your problem.>

“You are, I suppose. If you’re not here to kill me, what exactly do you want?”

<To avoid a traffic jam, for a start.> Tobias waited for Aria to pull back out onto the road before continuing. <In fact, we are not your problem, either. Visser Three is your problem.>

“Visser Three will understand. I had nothing to do with any of this.”

<Visser Three is not known for his understanding nature.>

I couldn’t see Aria’s expression, but her knuckles were white on the steering wheel as she took corners rather more sharply than necessary. She didn’t disagree.

<What do you plan to do, yeerk? Walk meekly to your own death? The loss of the son of Elfangor is not something that Visser Three – >

“Are you seriously just here to mock me? Do you really have nothing better to be doing?”

<I am here to offer you a way out.>

“You want to help me?”

<Yes.>

She sniffed. “No thanks.”

<If you do not accept our help, Visser Three will kill you! Do you understand?>

“Yeah, I can handle this without your help, thanks. I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to get backed into a corner and start making random deals with andalites. I’m sure you could torture a lot of information out of me in the time before I starve, but that doesn’t sound like a productive use of my time.”

<On my honor, you would not be harmed. We have a Yeerk Pool, and we do not torture our prisoners.>

“Andalite honor is worthless,” she replied, “and you’re going to try harder than ‘oh yeah, we decided to invest resources into building a Yeerk Pool for no reason’. We know you’d rather see us all starve, andalite, and you’re getting no information out of me, so either kill me or leave me alone.”

I tried to piece together what was happening. Aria’s hands were shaking; the yeerk was afraid. Not just of us – she’d been afraid before Tobias had announced his presence. She was afraid and… focused. We were in the way of something. She was concentrating on something more important than two deadly enemies who she believed willing to torture her to death.

Aria sped up, swerving around something to the sound of multiple car horns.

<She’s running away!> I realised. <Tobias, I think she’s fleeing. Right now.>

<Where are you trying to go?> Tobias asked her. <You can’t escape the Empire; not without us. No matter how far you drive, you’ll need to return to the Yeerk Pool.>

“That’s where you’re wrong, andalite,” she said with a little laugh.

<You’re going to use oatmal,> he concluded wearily. <I know you’re desperate, but the side effects – >

“Oatmeal? Hah. No. Oatmeal is for fools. Those of us who pay attention to the chatter know there’s a better way. Do not be concerned for me, andalite; we made this contingency plan the moment we were given a task so interesting to Visser Three.”

<Chatter?>

“The chatter says that there’s a way to survive without the Kandrona. There’s a brilliant yeerk scientist who was working on it, see, but he was targeted by Visser Three for petty reasons. Little did the Visser know, he’d already cracked it. He knows the secret, and he’ll share it with those in true need. He’s less than a day’s drive away. Plenty of time.”

<Would this mysterious scientist happen to be Visser Three’s twin?>

Aria sniffed. “What’s it to you? Don’t try to tell me you killed him. I know for a fact that he’s alive.”

<Oh, no. But we did meet him. And he told us his secret method of surviving without the Kandrona. Would you like to hear it?>

“This is a trick.”

<Cannibalism,> Tobias said simply. <He finds yeerks who have been in the Pool recently, and he eats them to gain the nutrients in their bodies. Are you so sure you want to run to him for help?>

“A trick,” she said firmly. But her voice wavered.

<Really? How many yeerks have gone to him for help? Have you ever heard from any of them again?>

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Why are you here?”

<Tobias,> I told him, <she won’t believe that you just want to save her host, and she won’t believe you’ll spare her life for nothing. You’re going to have to strike a deal with her to help her.>

Tobias gave a mental chuckle. <Okay, perhaps we do want something.>

“I knew it! What do you want?”

I had expected immediate refusal again. This was encouraging.

<As I told you, we watch the boy for Elfangor’s sake. We need to know how you found out about him. How you found the letter.>

She relaxed a little. “That’s it? You just want to know about the letter?”

<We want to know everything you know about Tobias Fangor, and we want to know how you know it. Everything. In exchange for that, you will be fed, comfortable and safe for the duration of the war.>

“That’s a start. But I want more.”

<What do you want?>

Her hand reached into her bag and gripped the neck of her thermos. “I want that offer to extend to two yeerks.”

<We do not have the resources to stage a rescue.>

“You don’t need to. Avin is with me. In here.” She lifted the thermos. “Charon’s in the Pool, but… well. I suppose we can only hope for a swift end to this war. The important thing is keeping everyone alive until then.” I flew close enough to her face to confirm my suspicions – there were tears in her eyes.

<Safety for two yeerks, in exchange for everything about Tobias Fangor.>

“Yes.”

<Deal.>


	14. Chapter 14

In the chee basement, I gently lowered two yeerks into the Pool. Tobias, gripping the edge, watched solemnly.

I hadn’t been present for Aria’s debriefing, feeling that there might be private information about Tobias that he wouldn’t want me to hear. But the whole thing had, according to him, been pretty boring – apparently the yeerks had taken over a lot of lawyers and routinely sifted through confidential client information looking for blackmail material and other weaknesses. Elfangor’s letter had turned up in one of these searches. Aria herself had refused Tobias’ offer of extraction to Rachel’s father’s place, saying she had ‘friends in Africa’ and would rather a nice big ocean between her and the mind controlling alien slugs.

“I guess we know how Aria’s yeerk managed to avoid going to the Pool during the time we watched her,” I noted. “She didn’t. She just had three yeerks. She could exchange them in a few minutes in the bathroom, without needing to wait ages for them to swim in the Pool.”

<One in the Pool, one in her head, one in the thermos,> Tobias added. <Seems pretty complicated. I think you could do it with two, and not need to carry anyone in a thermos.>

“I don’t think they liked leaving each other alone,” I said. “Especially if they were planning on the possibility of needing to flee.” I bit my lip and looked down into the Pool, where the two yeerks had already disappeared under the sludge. “And now we’ve separated them from the last member of their triad. Charon won’t have any idea if they’re dead or alive, and – ” I glanced at Tobias, whose hawk face was unreadable as always. “I mean… I know they hurt you,” I finished lamely.

<I’m not mad at them,> Tobias assured me. <I mean, not more mad than at any other yeerk. Being invading slavers and all. But I doubt being Aria was their idea.> He directed his predator gaze down at the Pool. <They’re trying to survive,> he said. <As much as the hawk is when he kills the rabbit, or the rabbit is when he flees and starves the hawk. That seems to be what the universe is, mostly. A big bunch of people getting in each other’s way while they’re trying to survive. And trying to figure out who’s getting in each other’s way the most and who deserves to just… doesn’t seem like a very constructive way to handle things.>

I nodded. My contemplation was interrupted by a very large dog, who tried to rest his head on my lap despite the fact that I was standing up. I scratched his ears.

“Elfangor, huh,” I said.

<Apparently.>

“And it’s pretty definite. Between the yeerk’s words, the letter, the _thalhu_ …”

<Don’t tell the others, okay?>

I nodded. “Okay.”

<I know it might be important,> Tobias added, hurriedly, <but I think I have to go through stuff myself, first. And I want to talk to Ax.>

Ax. Tobias’ uncle, I supposed.

“It’s your business,” I said. Me butting into my friends’ personal business against their will always seemed to turn out bad, so I resolved to try not to do it. Except when it turned out well, like uncovering Jake’s adventure in the Amazon. Or getting Rachel’s dad involved, who was invaluable in our ex-controller extraction efforts. Or – okay, maybe things were a bit more complicated than that. Now all I had to do was figure out when was and wasn’t the right time to butt in on personal business If I could sort that out, everything would be great.

<Thanks,> Tobias said.

I glanced back at the Pool. I was tempted to talk to Aftran, but I knew she’d be too busy at the moment, greeting her new poolmates and explaining as much as she could safely explain. It’d be good for her to have a couple more poolmates who had complete ravhan; even better that these two were, technically speaking, traitors like her, fleeing the Empire.

Well, not like her. They had been trying to capture Tobias for the Empire, and had fled to protect themselves. Aftran was the opposite; she had risked her life for what was right. But they were extra company, anyway.

I said goodbye to Tobias and headed homeward, stopping on impulse at the mall. I wasn’t really a ‘mall’ person, and it felt weird to be there without Rachel. But I needed… I don’t know. Time alone, I guess, without feeling like I was trying to be alone. Maybe that’s what the mall was really for.

My effort was in vain, because I ran into Marco outside the arcade immediately.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said.

“You here alone?”

“Just making sure I’m still the King of Arcade Games.” He smiled faintly. “I wanted to get away from things for a bit, but, well, I kind of forgot that this is where everything started, isn’t it?”

“I owe you an apology,” I said.

“Yeah, you do.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to push you to see Doctor Johnson.”

He shook his head. “Wrong apology.”

“What?”

“You were worried about me. You wanted me to see a professional. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, much as I hate that you do it. What you shouldn’t have done was involve our friends in a sneaky plot to try to force me into seeing Doctor Johnson. You tried to use me and them. Not cool, Cassie.”

I nodded. “I know. It’s just… hard to know what is and isn’t my job, you know?”

“Your job?”

I chose my words carefully. We were in a public place. “You guys are always acting like it’s my job to do the emotional labor for everyone, and to be everyone’s moral compass. It sucks, but you know, fair enough; everyone here’s doing something for the group. Whenever someone breaks down, it’s Cassie’s job to go soothe them; whenever we’re talking to people and they need convincing or a gentle hand, it’s Cassie’s job to figure that out. With outsiders, that’s fair enough; we all do what we’re best at. But between us… what exactly do you want me to do, here? Am I just the shoulder to cry on when things inevitably break down, but trying to do any pre-breakdown maintenance is going too far? Because frankly, no. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to smile and mumble platitudes of hope and do nothing while my friends are hurting. I’m not going to sit on my hands until they reach the point of no longer being functional because I’m too scared to overstep a boundary. That might work with reasonable people, but everyone in our group is stubborn as all hell and dealing with way more than anyone should every have to.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not defending myself. I went too far with this counsellor thing, I know. I’m just explaining why that wasn’t as obvious to me as it should have been.”

Marco nodded. “Let’s go somewhere private for a sec.” He grabbed my wrist and led me out of the arcade.

“Doesn’t this look a bit suspicious?” I mumbled in his ear.

“Suspicious? Nah, everyone knew that a babe like you would only settle for someone like Jake for so long before falling for my devastating charms,” he said with a wink. “Nothing surprising about you wanting to hang out with me at all.”

Like an idiot, I blushed. Marco’s ridiculous fake flirting was usually targeted at Rachel; I wasn’t sure why he was aiming it at me now, but I supposed it was probably a peaceful overture.

We headed outside the mall and found a long stretch of wall with no entrances, where nobody had any reason to go. After making sure we were alone, Marco leaned close and spoke quietly.

“I get that you’re worried about me,” he said “I get it. But this Nora thing is fine. Really. You’re just working on incomplete information.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. And I know how you hate incomplete information, so… I guess if I tell you the whole story, you’ll get why this really isn’t a problem.” He took a moment to collect his thoughts, then continued. “About a year and a half ago, my dad was offered big money for a new job with the military. I was freaking out about how I was going to convince him to turn it down so I could stay here for the fight, but it turned out he’d turned it down right away, hadn’t even considered it. When I asked him why, he explained about Mom. About honoring her wishes.”

“She’s anti-military?” I asked.

“No. I mean, she probably would be by now, but not back then. It turns out, my parents… well, they had a pretty normal relationship, I guess, for young people in love. They married too young and had a kid too early, and they fought over little things; money, work, who should do the dishes, y’know. Normal stuff. But then, about two years before she went missing, everything just… sorted itself out. Dad described it as having found a place of perfect peace and perfect love. He didn’t know if he’d changed, or if she had, or both of them maybe, but the fighting stopped. There was zero conflict in the house; they were perfectly in sync.” Marco smiled a humorless smile. “It was a dream life, a dream marriage. But sometimes, it seemed like she was struggling with something she wouldn’t tell him about. Then, one night, she awoke from a nightmare and sat bolt upright in bed. She said to him, clear as day, ‘They’ll leave you alone if you stay away from the military. Please, please promise me that you’ll stay away from the military.’ It was a nightmare, but Dad said that her tone made it sound like the most important thing she’d ever said to him. So he promised. And she went back to sleep. And that’s the story of why my dad won’t work for the military.”

I stared.

“Two years,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Two years.”

“Two years.”

“So you would have been… ten or eleven?”

“Somewhere around there, yeah. Depending on how accurate my dad’s memory of time is.”

I nodded. Wow. Two years of an alien invader, one of the highest-ranked yeerks in the Empire, tucking him into bed and making him lunch and congratulating him for his grades. I could see Marco’s point now. The scenario wasn’t, as I’d thought, that Marco’s parents were separated by space and the misconception that one was dead. To Marco, they hadn’t had a relationship for about five and a half years. That was plenty of time to accept a stepmother, I supposed. Wasn’t it? It was an area I had no experience in.

I thought that was his point, until Marco spoke again. That hadn’t been his point at all.

“Do you think she realised?” he asked.

“What?”

“My mom. She must have loved him a lot, to get that warning out, to try to keep him safe. To use that energy to try to help him instead of herself. But she had to have realised, right? She’s too smart not to.”

“Realised what?”

“That my dad loved the filthy alien slug who stole her body and mind more than he could ever have loved her.”

I blinked. “Marco, he didn’t know. He had no way to know!”

“I know that. Neither of us had any way of knowing. We couldn’t help her, and I’m not blaming him for not magically realising that aliens are real and stole his wife. But that doesn’t change the fact that when my dad thinks of ‘perfect peace and perfect love’, he’s not thinking of my mother. When she vanished and I had to keep us together, I had to keep an eye out for suicidal triggers and look after the house and make sure he looked lively and put-together enough to keep social services off our backs, he wasn’t mourning her. He was mourning Visser One. I have no idea what their relationship was like, what their love was like; I was a little kid for most of it, and when he reminisces about the past, he doesn’t talk about my mother. He talks about Visser One.” Marco smiled faintly. “Even a math teacher, while obviously an evil alien like all math teachers, is probably a lot better for him than a yeerk, right? This wedding is a step up for everyone.”

“That’s… all pretty horrible,” was all I could say.

“Is it?” Marco asked, as if that genuinely hadn’t occurred to him. “In that case, we’re going to have a real problem on our hands if we, by some miracle, actually manage to win this war.”

I nodded. “I’m sure your mother will – ”

He waved a hand dismissively. “My mother is my problem. I meant all the others.”

“The others?”

“The others. The Tidwells of the world who joined The Sharing as borderline-suicidal alcoholics. The delinquent teens who suddenly became happy, law-abiding kids that their parents could actually be proud of as soon as a yeerk was stuck in their ear. The kids who are nearly flunking school, join The Sharing for access to their tutoring services and have grades that suddenly skyrocket once they become full members. The criminals who yeerks decide are more useful as law-abiding citizens, the other controller moms and dads out there who become perfect domestic partners overnight because their yeerks don’t want to bother with petty domestic battles. If we win, those people will be free. Free to be their annoying, flawed, human selves. If you think that’s horrible, Cassie… well, best-case scenario is a pretty horrible future when everyone faces the shock of a reality with real human spouses and siblings and kids again.”

“You don’t think that’s horrible?”

“Of course not. It’s ludicrous. It’s hilarious.”

“How is any of this hilarious?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “But give me some time. I’m bound to find the punchline eventually.”

  



End file.
